


This Delicate Balance

by untune_the_sky



Series: Soulmate AU [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky's Doesn't Handle Certain Things Very Well, Bucky's POV, Bucky's Stealthy European Revenge Tour, Bucky's Still Working Through Some Stuff, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship - Clint/Natasha, F/M, Gen, I Swear Bucky Will Eventually Self-Identify As Bucky, I Swear Bucky and Steve Will Actually Talk Face-To-Face in the Present in the Next One Too, M/M, Maybe the Next One, Past Abuse, Past Brainwashing, Past Torture, Platonic Soulmates, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Protective Bucky Barnes, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Wade Fanboys Captain America, Wade Helps Bucky Turn Back into a Real Boy, Wade Is Awesome, Wade is a Good Bro, alternating povs, clint's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4915810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untune_the_sky/pseuds/untune_the_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>“If you listen close, you’ll hear the sound<br/>of all the ghosts that bring us down.<br/>Hold on to what makes you feel,<br/>don’t let go, it’s what makes you real…”<br/><br/>“Raging Fire” — Phillip Phillips<br/><br/>***</p>
</div><br/><br/>The soulmark on Clint’s back and half of his front is <i>literally</i> in tatters and he has to fight every single instinct he has to keep himself from dropping the mission in Johannesburg to book it Stateside.<br/><br/><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><br/><br/>The asset does not let himself think about Brooklyn. Brooklyn, until he sets foot in it, is an abstract concept that, in his mind, represents <i>home</i>.<br/>Maybe.
            </blockquote>





	This Delicate Balance

**Author's Note:**

> This fic likely will not make sense if you haven't read [Until This Dream is Over](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4872994), so I suggest hitting that up if you haven't yet. There's a bit of overlap between the end of UTDiO and TDB, but in different POVs, so hopefully it's not confusing. You don't need to read the first fic in the series ([The Other Half](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4862876)) to follow this one, but it does explain Clint's issues with his soulmark at the beginning of the fic.
> 
> The title is taken from "Existentialism on Prom Night" by Straylight Run rather than the Phillip Phillips song quoted above. Highly recommend giving that a listen.
> 
> I think I managed to tag everything that needs a warning, but if you see something that ought to be tagged, just comment to let me know. I'll take care of it ASAP.
> 
> Thanks to Zippit and Tink for giving this a last-minute read-through for me, your efforts were most appreciated! And, since I suppose this is a thing people are doing, here's my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/writteninsable). Feel free to stop by and say hello! :)

The soulmark on Clint’s back and half of his front is _literally_ in tatters, and he has to fight every single instinct he has to keep himself from dropping the mission in Johannesburg to book it stateside.

The last text message he got from Tasha on his latest burner phone was the codeword they use when shit’s hitting the fan but they’re sure they’ll be alright. Only Clint woke up last week to a _memo_ about Fury getting offed (what the _fuck_ ), and then he wakes up this morning to the tingle that usually means his soulmark is changing. And Jesus H. Christ, has it changed.

The web, which has grown to curl over his shoulders, inch down his upper arms, and actually overlap in one spot on his stomach… it’s decimated. The first thing he sees is a single anchoring thread on his shoulder. Everything else is blank, and that’s wrong. That’s very wrong. There should be at least four anchoring threads on his collarbones, two on either side. He tells himself not to panic and he very calmly puts on a shirt before walking to the bathroom. He still _has_ the soulmark. He has it, so she’s alright. She has to be alright.

Once he’s in front of the big mirror hanging over the sink, Clint pulls his shirt off with one hand and twists around to check his mark. The back isn’t any better than what’s left on his front. The black widow that made its home, the center of its web, right over his heart… is gone. He might actually panic a little in that moment, he’s not ashamed to admit it, but then years of experience and multi-layered contingency plans kick in. He makes himself take a slow breath and cranes his head around at an awkward angle to check the remaining threads, which parts of the web are whole, and where the spider might have retreated.

He finds her lurking behind his left ear.

So he trashes the burner phone and activates the next SIM card on their list, checks in with the voicemail service they use for backup communication, and then the web-based email service that never actually sends any emails or records the ISP and geographical location of the person logging in. He finds what he’s looking for there. It isn’t as detailed as he might like, but it lays out the plan she and Cap are setting in motion and gives him a timeline for when things will probably be wrapped up in DC.

Clint finishes the mission in Johannesburg even though there doesn’t seem to be much point anymore. His entire organization is in shambles. The world knows _everything_. Or it will, once it’s done wading through the massive information dump from SHIELD’s servers. And that’s a whole different level of disconcerting. Tasha’s burned _all_ of her aliases along with lots of other people’s, which leaves a good percentage of their colleagues in difficult situations. Hill and Stark are apparently attempting to assist the ones they can reach. The others are just SOL if they aren’t Hydra. Clint feels a little bit bad for them. Mostly, though, he feels a vague sense of anticipation and an insane amount of worry.

Then he reminds himself that this isn’t as bad as 2012. At least he knows Tasha’s still herself. Nobody’s taken her out of her head and stuffed something else back in. So really, it’s fine. Comparatively, everything’s fine.

He flies into Dulles six days after the helicarriers shoot each other out of the sky over the Potomac and promptly wishes he hadn’t.

Tasha is all _over_ the televisions in the terminal. Not a _single_ one shows anything but her hearing before a congressional committee overseeing something or other, Clint hasn’t paid as much attention to that as he probably should have. Even the _sports_ bars are showing the hearing.

He leaves the terminal, catches a cab, and then begins the ridiculously slow, pretty damn tedious process of hopping around DC to make sure no one’s following him before he starts checking Tasha’s safe houses. There are only four of them in the city, but he’s crossing his fingers that he’ll find her in the first or second one because he’s still on South African time and it’s already 9 p.m. in Washington. Clint feels like he could collapse and sleep for a week, but he knows that’s not going to happen. He’s pretty hopeful Tasha won’t shoot him when he walks through the door, though. He’s gathered from what few contacts he has left that what hit the fan in DC was big. Very, very big. And Steve’s apparently in the hospital, so he knows it has to have been bad, too.

Tasha’d looked okay on the TV, so Clint’s hopeful. A little. He’s not _really,_ really hopeful because that’s just a good way to set himself up for disappointment. But a little. A little bit of hope is okay.

Tasha doesn’t shoot him when he opens the door to her third safe house.

She’s still wearing the suit she had on at the hearing; her hair’s only a little bit frizzy from the DC heat and humidity. 

“Hey,” he says, putting his duffel bag and his bow case on the floor.

She takes a slow breath and Clint sees the gun on the counter near her hip. He makes sure his hands are visible and nowhere near his pockets. He needs details about the situation as it stands now.

She’s wearing the necklace he gave her last year.

“Are you Hydra?” Tasha asks.

“No,” Clint answers. He knew she’d ask. He’d have asked her, if their positions were reversed.

“I need you to tell me the truth, Clint.”

“That is definitely, 100% the truth, Tasha.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he agrees, still not sure whether it’s safe for him to drop his hands or not. Her voice is all kinds of wrong.

“I’m trusting you on that. Because you’re you and you can’t lie to me, not even to save your life.” She takes another slow breath and he knows she’s not finished, she’s just regulating her breathing. “And also because you’re my soulmate. You’re my soulmate and you wouldn’t lie to me like everybody else, even if you could. Right?”

“Hey,” Clint says, stepping forward despite the gun. It’s not in her hand, he has at least a second or two to duck for cover if she goes for it. He reaches for her slowly, one hand settling on her waist while he moves the other up so he can brush his thumb over her cheek. “Hey, no. I wouldn’t lie to you. I _don’t_ lie to you. You know that. Talk to me, Tasha. What happened?”

“The Winter Soldier.”

Clint hisses, the fingers at her waist tightening involuntarily before he forces them to relax. He remembers Odessa. He remembers flying the Quinjet in and disembarking despite Coulson’s voice in his ear telling him to stop, to think, to consider the possible repercussions of his actions.

 _The shooter might still be in play, Barton!_ C’mon, Phil. Clint’s only ever been that reckless where Tasha’s concerned.

“Hydra contracted him to kill Fury. The first attempt failed,” she says. He’s looking at her face. She’s not looking at his. Her eyes aren’t downcast, she’s just taking in his clothing, his skin, the set of his shoulders as she feeds him this information. She’s monitoring his responses. She’s probably counting his heartbeats from the pulse point at the hollow of his throat. It’s _pounding_.

Clint swallows, doesn’t interrupt.

“Somehow the Soldier knew Fury would go to Steve. I can’t — I don’t know how he knew that. Three shots, center mass, through the wall. It was — Clint,” she finally looks him in the eye. “It was _perfect_.”

“Okay,” Clint says, nodding slowly. He knows what she means. A perfect shot through a wall would take skill and excellent spatial awareness. Distance-conscious spatial awareness, probably some predictive calculations based on observation of the target, too. It makes sense, given the Winter Soldier’s the one who took the shot. He’s a _legend_ amongst snipers.

“Steve, he was hiding something. I knew he was,” she says, voice soft. The story continues that way, a thorough recounting of the events in DC. She’s giving him a play-by-play and he wishes he’d been there, wishes he could have helped her. But he wasn’t, he was handling the situation in Joburg. She tells him about Steve. She tells him about Zola. She tells him about Sam. She tells him about Sitwell. She tells him about Pierce. She tells him about the Winter Soldier being James Buchanan Barnes. She tells him about Fury’s Lazarus routine. She tells him about Project: Insight. She tells him that despite all her preparation, Pierce still very nearly killed her.

Clint pulls her close, and she finishes speaking into his shoulder, her voice muffled.

Steve is in the hospital. She, Sam, and Hill have been sitting with him in shifts. None of them trust anyone else to keep him safe. Hill is going to interview with Stark Industries.

SHIELD is gone.

Clint doesn’t say anything for a long moment, setting his chin atop her head and just breathing with her. Finally, though, he asks, “So what’s our play?”

She laughs. It’s a quiet sound. Sometimes he wishes the soulmarks gave them some kind of psychic thing. Telepathy would be really useful where Tasha’s concerned. He’s gotten used to her quirks, though. He’s pretty sure she’s relieved that he’s with her, whatever she decides to do.

“Well,” she says, pulling back a little so she can see his face again even as she slides her arms around him. “Hydra’s still out there. So is James Barnes.”

“Which one are we focusing on?”

“Hydra. Until Steve derails us,” Tasha says, frowning a little. She rubs her wrist against the small of his back, making a slightly irritated sound. Before Clint can ask what the problem is, she leans back and pulls her arm into the space between them. He’s expecting an injury of some kind or maybe even a bug bite. It’s clear from her expression, though, that she’s not expecting what they both see.

“Well,” Clint says, eyebrows inching upward. “That’s new.”

“I — ” From her wide-eyed expression, Clint can tell that’s an understatement. She shakes her head. “But this — ”

“Gotta be platonic,” he offers, shrugging.

The noise Tasha makes as she looks from the small mark on her right wrist back to Clint is mildly derisive. “Obviously.” She raises her arm to better catch the light.

“Bullet,” Clint says, quirking a smile.

“With a tiny red star,” Tasha says, something heavy and uncomfortable in her voice.

“So you and him, huh?”

“Me and him _what_ , Barton?” She asks, lips thinning.

“Platonic soulmates. Ain’t that a kick in the head?” He asks, half-grinning now.

Tasha sighs, dropping her arm to rub the new mark against her side, right over the scar that was her only souvenir from Odessa. Then, as though she hadn’t interrupted their previous conversation, she says, “You should’ve seen Steve, Clint. When Barnes’ mask came off — it was like he froze. He just locked up, everything — I don’t know…” She trails off, searching his eyes.

They’re going to have to talk about it at some point, probably when her latest bullet wound doesn’t hurt and he’s not suffering from the worst jetlag ever.

“It was more than just seeing a ghost. It was more than just getting back a piece of his past,” Tasha says softly as she wraps her arms around his middle again and tightens her hold on him. “I’m just not sure what it means yet.”

 

* * *

 

They find out what it means the following morning. At least, Clint assumes Tasha has figured it out when they walk into Steve’s room. Sam’s there, so while Clint moves over to introduce himself, Tasha goes to see if she can persuade Steve to get back into bed.

No such luck.

Of course, she stops actually trying to get him to do anything almost as soon as she reaches him. Clint doesn’t pay the two of them much attention, initially, more interested in saying hello to this shiny, new person who apparently has _wings_. Only then he hears her say, “You forgot to _mention_ something, didn’t you, Steve?”

That tone of voice doesn’t usually bode well for whoever it’s directed at, so Clint exchanges a startled glance with Sam before they both walk over to where the super soldier and the spy are standing. “Tasha?”

Steve is in a white tank top, which is, quite frankly, unfair. Clint would make a comment about that, but Tasha takes hold of Steve’s left arm, which Clint hadn’t been able to see before, and turns it around so they can all see the mark there.

Normally, Clint would have maybe looked at the ceiling or something, since it’s a bit awkward, staring at other people’s soulmarks, only he sees what caught Tasha’s attention immediately.

“Aw, Steve. No.”

“What?” Sam asks, peering around Clint to see what they’re all staring at. “Damn.” He doesn’t sound upset, just like he should have suspected something along these lines would happen.

Steve, for his part, just looks vaguely resigned.

“How long has it been like that?” Clint asks, gesturing at the mark.

“I noticed it the first day I was awake in the hospital. It’s,” Steve stalls out a bit. Clint raises an eyebrow and looks at him expectantly. “It’s what woke me up.”

There’s literally no question in Clint’s mind about what it means.

“It wasn’t like that after Hydra blew up Camp Lehigh,” Tasha says.

“Right,” Sam says, nodding a little. “Or when I offered you guys breakfast.”

“I don’t know why it changed — ”

Tasha snorts. “Steve.”

“Well, I _don’t_. I mean, not exactly — ”

“The hands were wearing gloves. There was a rifle, right?” Tasha asks.

“Sniper rifle, yeah,” Steve says, nodding. “But the left arm, it lost the glove after I realized he was Bucky. Turned into the metal one. I felt that change after the bridge, too.”

“And you decided not to mention it,” Tasha says.

Watching the two of them go at it is kind of like watching a tennis match. Clint and Sam keep turning their heads to watch whoever’s speaking as they go back and forth, back and forth. But, Clint’s never really been a fan of tennis. “Right, Steve’s an idiot for not telling us the Winter Soldier is his soulmate. He’s sorry. Let’s everybody take a breath so we can try and figure out — ”

“I have to find him,” Steve says.

Clint looks from Steve’s face to Tasha’s and then turns to Sam and lets his forehead thunk onto the other man’s shoulder. It’s a little too familiar considering they literally just met one another, but he feels like this is a bonding experience, if ever there was one. “We should go,” he says, not moving his head.

Sam doesn’t say anything in response, just turns and walks out the door, taking Clint with him. Clint glances back, eyes skimming over the full arms attached to the hands holding the sniper rifle on Steve’s bicep. The red star is unmistakable against the silver-white of the left one.

“Man,” Sam says, shaking his head as they close the door. “ _Man_.”

“You’re telling _me_ ,” Clint mutters. “I’m too jetlagged for this shit.”

He’s _pretty_ sure leaving Tasha alone with Steve wasn’t a terrible idea. At least, when he and Sam get back with hot drinks and pastries from a coffee shop down the street, neither of them are dead, tied up, or bleeding profusely. He does a slightly more thorough check on Steve as he drops a crueller in front of the super soldier, then gives Tasha a double thumbs up behind his back.

She rolls her eyes and Clint grins.

“Hey,” Clint says suddenly, like the thought has just popped into his head. “You two _match_!”

If looks could kill, Clint’s positive he’d at least be suffering from a severe case of blunt force trauma given the way Tasha’s eyes cut to the side to fix on him.

“What?” Steve asks, looking from Clint to Tasha and back again.

“Go on,” Clint says, nodding toward her wrist. “Show the man.”

Sighing, Tasha pulls the sleeve on her right arm up to expose her wrist and the inch-long, Soviet-esque bullet there.

“And you were mad at _me_ for not saying anything?” Steve asks, incredulous.

“That showed up _yesterday_ , Steve,” Tasha shoots back.

Clint’s phone vibrates in his pocket so he pulls it out to see what’s going on. Tasha’s the only person who actually has this number. “Great,” he says, interrupting Tasha and Steve’s silent stare-off. “Anybody else just get a totally shady message from our dearly departed director? No? Just me?”

Steve reaches for his phone, which must have been on silent, to check for messages, then nods as Tasha checks her own phone before shrugging her ‘yeah, okay’ shrug. Sam’s the only one who’s left out in the cold by Fury but Clint figures that’s just because he’s an unknown quantity.

“I’ve got a thing I need to do,” Tasha says, giving Steve a significant look before taking a sip of her hot chocolate.

“We can head to the meeting,” Steve says, nodding toward Sam.

“Sweet, I’ma go home,” Clint says. The other three look at him like he’s lost his mind. “What? Somebody has to butter Stark up, and it’s not gonna be any of you.”

Tasha half-smiles at him. He feels like he won a game of chance, what with outing her new soulmark and somehow still getting that smile. Then again, Clint’s really good at games of chance.

First, he heads back to the safe house to eat some food and sleep away the afternoon. That evening, after successfully avoiding Tasha’s glares of irritation as he tuts over the hole in her shoulder, he books himself a flight to JFK. He wonders about that gunshot wound, though. About the fact that Tasha’s managed to be non-fatally shot by the Winter Soldier _twice_. It seems significant.

Odessa was a flaming hot pile of pure shit but it would have been easy to take one shot to kill her, get her out of the way, and then shoot the real target. Clint guesses it could have been about keeping up appearances — it _is_ pretty badass, being able to say you shot your mark in the head _through_ someone else. Purely from a logistical standpoint, Clint has to admit to some professional envy.

Then again, there was none of that in DC and yet Tasha is still alive, so it’s likely they don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle that is the Winter Soldier, aka Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, aka Captain America’s supposedly dead BFF from the 1940s.

Their lives have become _so bizarre_ since Stark decided 2008 was a good year to get kidnapped by terrorists and that building himself a flying metal suit was the best response to that particular event.

 

* * *

 

The asset gets off the train at Penn Station. He does not allow himself to become distracted by the various advertisements and generalized confusion inside the station as he ducks his head and moves with the crowd. There is nothing familiar here. The entire structure is underground. He thought he might recognize something, but he does not.

He is, apparently, on the ACE side of the station. This designation does not make sense to him, but he believes it will, once he has a better impression of the New York public transportation system as a whole.

The asset follows the signs for the express train. Express seems preferable. He wants to reach his destination as quickly as possible. As he waits, he sees two local trains pass him by and frowns, but he stays on the platform. He is committed to the express train.

The asset does not let himself think about Brooklyn. Brooklyn, until he sets foot in it, is an abstract concept that, in his mind, represents _home._

Maybe it represents home. He is not sure. The asset is beginning to get very tired of being unsure.

He gets off the train at High Street. High Street/Brooklyn Bridge. The asset takes note of this and exits the station.

The asset walks away from the bridge. He does not want to go back to Manhattan yet. He needs a plan before he crosses over the bridge. There are three Hydra safe houses in Manhattan and at least two caches.

It is warm outside.

The asset walks.

It is not peaceful. There is noise, constant noise. It is oddly comforting. He doesn’t know why. The voice in the back of his mind says that some things never change. He trusts the voice. It is still his and not his.

Tonight, the asset will find somewhere to rest. Logically, he understands that the small apartment with the rickety bed and the thin blankets does not exist. It has likely been gone for a very long time. _He_ has been gone for a very long time. But the asset is not cold, the asset is warm. It’s easier to think when he is warm.

He walks away from the wider streets, seeking alleys and narrow thoroughfares because it’s difficult to find a good line of sight in them. It’s easier to get lost.

The asset stops before losing himself and evaluates his condition. He cannot run and run and run. He needs to find a rhythm and settle into calm breathing. He needs to eat. He needs to sleep. He needs to allow himself to think about Rogers and the lies and the time in between the train in the Alps and the helicarrier in DC. He needs to think about the words, the trigger phrase. He needs to remember what it means.

_I’m with you till the end of the line._

The end of what line? Why is it ending? Why is this important? Why does the thought of the end of the line make his chest tighten painfully?

Absently rubbing his thumb against the small mark on his wrist, the asset draws in a deep breath to try to calm the rapid beating of his heart. He’s not sure why he feels so unsteady.

Someone shouts further down the street and the asset shifts, moving into the lengthening shadows at the base of the building closest to him. He surveys his surroundings. He is not being security conscious. He is not maintaining a secure perimeter. The asset still does not care. That does not mean that the asset wants to get mugged.

The asset does not know how far he has walked, only that it has been hours and the sun is setting. In the alleyways, the sun has already set. He should find a roof if he wants to see the colors in the sky. He knows that he is no longer in Brooklyn Heights and he did not walk toward Vinegar Hill.

He sees a food truck. That is the source of the shouting.

The asset needs food.

The asset orders ten fish tacos.

“Shitsticks!”

The exclamation comes from a voice that is ragged around the edges but not from disuse. Gasoline running through broken glass and gravel. The asset thinks it is simply the way the voice is. He turns slowly, having paid for and accepted his bag of ten fish tacos.

There is a man standing at the corner of the food truck where the light is dim and the shadows thicken. He is far enough away that striking him would be difficult but more than close enough for the asset to see his red and black spandex suit. The asset does not know how he feels about this development.

“Did you just take the last of the fish tacos?” The man in the red and black suit asks, fists braced on spandex-covered hips.

The asset shrugs, vibranium hand curling tightly in his pocket.

“You did, didn’t you?”

The asset does not respond. He is unsure whether or not the food truck has more fish tacos. It is not his job to know.

“Can I have one?” The man asks. The operator of the food truck is gesturing frantically for the asset to give the masked man the bag of tacos, but the asset does not want to give the man his tacos.

Narrowing his eyes, the asset shakes his head. The operator of the food truck makes some sort of noise. It’s possible it’s a sound of utter despair.

_I don’t like bullies._

The words push themselves to the front of his mind. The asset does not think he ever specifically said them, but he is familiar with them. The asset is very familiar with them. They inspire an odd mixture of emotions in his chest. He is beginning to be able to identify them. Fondness, exasperation, and resignation are at the fore.

“Rude,” the masked man says, pointing a finger at the asset.

Stepping back, making it obvious with his body language that he has no desire to be involved in a confrontation, the asset turns and begins walking away. He wants to find a roof. He wants to see the sunset over Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not quiet and she is not tidy but walking through her streets allows something in him to uncoil. It does not explain itself, the uncoiling thing, and the asset does not press it for answers.

Footsteps are following the asset.

“ _Super_ rude! Hey, guy!”

A hand grips the asset’s right elbow, and the asset reacts without thought. The asset moves, taking the hand on his elbow in his own, gripping hard enough to crush bone with his metal fingers as he turns. He pulls the masked man forward, into a throw. He believes it is a textbook Judo throw but there are many different martial arts ingrained in his muscles and he does not stop to ponder which one he’s utilizing now. Instead, the asset releases the man’s hand and follows him to the dirty pavement, metal hand gripping his throat as he braces his knees against spandex-covered shoulders.

Fingers tightening minutely, just shy of crushing the man’s windpipe, the asset says a very simple, “No.”

It cannot be comfortable, laying on the ground atop criss-crossed swords. The asset is sure there are enough guns and knives on the man to make him a walking health hazard, but that is not important. What is important is the way the man nods just a little. The asset recognizes the imprint of raised eyebrows beneath the red and black mask.

Standing, the asset releases the man’s throat and moves quickly out of his reach.

Uninjured hand rising to his throat, the man wheezes, “Okay. Sorry, was just gonna offer you money for some of the tacos.”

The asset realizes he did not drop the bag of tacos. It is still clutched tightly in his flesh and blood hand. His duffel bag is now hanging at an awkward angle off his shoulder. He does not respond to the man’s words, choosing to turn to leave, instead.

“So, uh,” the mans says, pushing himself up off the ground. “Who’re you here to kill?”

The asset turns back toward the man.

The man wags his injured hand at the asset. Then he nods to the asset’s. The metal is exposed.

“Hi, I’m Deadpool. We did a thing together in like 1990.”

The asset’s expression does not change. He wonders if he will have to kill this man. The probability is high.

“Look, I really _am_ sorry about the arm thing. I’m just _jonesing_ for some fish tacos like you would not _believe_ but I’m definitely not gonna yoink them out from under the Winter Soldier’s nose. Or hand. Whatever. Are you on a contract? Please stop looking at me like you’re dismembering me in your brain.”

The asset is not dismembering the other man in his brain. Dismemberment would be messy. It would require a lot of lye. The asset has neither the time nor the inclination to deal with a dismembered body. “No,” he answers finally.

“Wait — no, you won’t stop dismembering me in your brain? Or no, you’re not on a contract?”

The asset’s expression shifts, his slight irritation evident. “I would not bother with dismembering you,” he says. “And I am not on a contract.”

“Cause man, I watch the news sometimes, and my people tell me things. That was some _crazy_ shit in DC.”

The asset’s expression closes off again.

“Right, okay, so not mentioning the to-do in the capital,” Deadpool says, holding his hands up in front of him to show he means no harm.

The asset watches a crooked bone snap itself back into place inside the man’s glove, and a memory stirs. He thinks he might remember the mission in 1990. At least, he remembers something involving a man who would not die. It is not a clear memory and it has none of the emotional overtones that have, thus far, allowed him to grasp at things involving the complicated redhead and Rogers. It was just a mission. Upon successful completion, he was undoubtedly wiped and returned to cryostasis.

The silence lengthens.

“Okay, so. This is awkward. I’m just… gonna go… find a different taco truck,” Deadpool says.

The asset watches him back away slowly. When he is out of sight, the asset returns to the alleyways of Brooklyn. He practices evasive maneuvers and takes security precautions to make sure Deadpool is not following him.

By the time he finds a roof that meets his specifications, his tacos are cold and the sun has already set. The stars are not as visible here as he thinks he remembers they were, once upon a time. He is still content.

 

* * *

 

Tasha threatens to kick his ass if he doesn’t get out of the DC safe house and onto a flight to New York, so Clint hightails it back to Dulles. His plane hits the tarmac at JFK right in the middle of an impressive rainstorm, so he goes straight home. He’s never so happy to own a building in New York City as he is when he can walk into the apartment and just throw his shit on the floor. It’s not like the landlord’s gonna complain about the potential for water damage from his soggy boots on the hardwood.

Clint flops onto his couch and checks his phone. He turned it on when he landed and a couple missed text messages had popped up, but none of them were from Tasha or Steve, so he hadn’t bothered replying. Now, though, he’s got the usual check-in from Tasha’s most recent burner. He responds like he knows he’s supposed to and then contemplates taking a nap before picking up Lucky.

The dog’s getting a little geriatric, which makes Clint’s heart hurt. Or it would, if he admitted that he felt anything for Lucky but begrudging respect and a certain fondness inspired by years of living in close quarters. Shaking his head, he pushes himself up and goes to check in with Marie across the hall. It’s an hour or so later, once he’s got Lucky settled, that he pours himself a third cup of coffee and makes up his mind to head over to Stark Tower.

He guesses it’s Avengers Tower now, but that hadn’t _really_ stuck before, when they were all so scattered around. Tony was off getting his property on the West Coast blown up by terrorists, Thor was back in Asgard, Tasha was in DC with Steve, and Clint had been trotting all over the globe to try and either stabilize struggling governments that SHIELD liked or destabilize struggling governments that it didn’t. Bruce was the only person to take Tony up on his offer of an apartment with a view on a semi-regular basis and even _that_ had been in between disappearing to various third world countries. The doc tried to stay off everyone’s radar when he did that, and Clint honestly couldn’t see any reason to put a tracker on him. Bruce’d come back to his platonic sciencebro soulmate eventually.

And that was never, ever going to not be hilarious.

Stark has some ridiculous formula on his shoulder blade that’d shown up right after he met Bruce on the helicarrier and Bruce has a little robot that nobody knows anything about on his calf. It seems significant to Tony, though, and Bruce seems to know what the formula is about, so it works. “Rock on, sciencebros,” Clint mutters, pressing his thumb against the fingerprint scanner and then leaning down for the retinal scanner so he can get on the elevator _._

“Hey, Stark,” he calls, getting off on the common floor.

“Agent Barton,” Jarvis says. “Welcome.”

“You sound as electronically sexy as ever, Jarvis,” Clint says with a grin.

“Thank you.”

“Can you tell me where Tony is?”

“He’s in the workshop,” Jarvis replies.

“Thanks, man. Anything going on I should know about? Or, y’know, that’ll blow up if I interrupt him?”

“No. But thank you for inquiring.”

“No prob. Anybody else in residence?”

“Not at the moment. I believe Thor is still off-world and Doctor Banner has gone for a walk. Agent Romanoff and the Captain are both still in Washington, DC.”

“Sweet, thanks,” Clint says, turning right back around and getting back on the elevator so he can go down sixty floors to the first sub-basement.

True to Jarvis’ word, nothing explodes when Clint walks into the workshop.

“Barton,” Tony calls, glancing toward the door. He’s wearing welding goggles and gloves, which seems wise given the welding torch in his hands, but he’s not wearing a protective apron, just a tank top through which Clint can see the conspicuous _lack_ of the arc reactor’s glow. “Are we doing the thing? Is the thing what we’re doing now? I’m not ready for the thing. You have to give me at least three hours’ worth of warning before attempting the thing.”

Clint has no idea what Tony’s talking about. He raises an eyebrow. “What thing?”

“The thing, the thing — you know, the — ” Stark looks a little dazed, and he has a smear of grease or oil on his cheekbone.

“How long have you been down here, man?” Clint asks.

“J? How long’ve I been down here?”

“Twenty-six hours, seventeen minutes, and thirty-two seconds, sir,” Jarvis replies.

Tony points to the ceiling. “What the AI said.”

“What’s Pepper have to say about that?”

“Pepper’s in Japan,” Tony replies. “I’m working on — a thing. _The_ thing.”

“Uh huh,” Clint says, watching the other man carefully. Stark only seems a little manic at the moment, so either he’s going to hit the caffeine hard in the next ten minutes or he’s going to crash. The crash will probably be epic, if that’s the route he takes. Which means Clint has ten minutes to get Tony to agree to go after Hydra with Steve. And to fund the whole effort. And probably give them a place to live in between missions.

“But you’re apparently not here for the thing.”

“I mean, it depends. Is the thing an Asgardian bow or a new arrowhead prototype?”

“No, but — hey, did you get the arrowheads I sent you?”

“Yeah, that grappling one was great. The tensile strength of the rope totally held up to double the weight of the one SHIELD designed for me.”

“You tested it?”

“Not on purpose,” Clint says, grinning. “But I had to get away from some guys in Joburg, it was the last arrowhead in my quiver, and I had a passenger. Very spontaneous.”

“Awesome. You want, like, a hundred of those?”

“I mean, I’m not gonna turn them down, but I’m not sure I have anywhere to store a hundred of them.”

“What?”

“SHIELD’s dead in the water, Tony,” Clint says, his voice only a little bit bitter. “If it was ever actually sailing anywhere to begin with.”

“Right, right. The Hydra thing,” Tony says, nodding. He turns the welding torch off and pulls his goggles down so they’re hanging around his neck. “I hired Hill as my new Head of Security. The international one. She’s currently going through — well, everything. She’s going through everything and everyone to try and make sure we don’t have Hydra in SI. I assume that’s why you’re here?”

Clint smiles. “Yeah. That’s why I’m here.”

“Where’s Cap? And your particular ladyfriend?”

“Tasha’s doing… a Tasha thing, I guess. Steve’s… doing a different thing. He made a friend,” Clint says. “We’re gonna need to handle the Hydra thing, though.”

“Just you and me?”

“Nah, they should all be back from their other things soon. Ish. Soonish.” Clint raises his eyebrows.

“That’s not the thing that I was — ”

Jarvis interrupts Stark, though, before he can get going. “Excuse me, sir. You asked to be notified should any of the other Avengers return to the Tower?”

“Yeah, J. Who’s popped up on the radar?”

“Thor has just arrived. He’s on the roof.”

“Field trip time, Cupid,” Tony says, tossing his gloves onto the table near the welding torch and heading for the door. “Let’s roll.”

“Anthony,” Thor says by way of greeting once they reach the roof. “Clinton.”

Clint gives the Asgardian a small salute while Tony sets about attempting to scuff the intricate pattern now burned onto part of his helipad. “Thor,” he says, looking up. “To what do we owe the surprise visit?”

Thor frowns and says, “I bring unhappy tidings, friends. Are the others in residence?”

“Bruce went on a tea run or something, so you’re stuck with me and Robin Hood over here.”

“So be it,” Thor says gravely. “The scepter brought to Earth by Loki and entrusted to Director Fury of SHIELD has fallen into the hands of those who would use it for ill.”

Clint freezes for a moment, but he knows he shouldn’t be surprised by the news given all the recent revelations concerning Hydra. “Let me guess,” he mutters. “The Nazis have it.”

Still frowning as he walks with Tony and Clint toward the doors leading inside, Thor shakes his head. “I am not familiar with this group. I am, thus, unsure as to whether or not they are responsible for the scepter’s theft.”

“Doesn’t matter, big guy,” Clint says, shaking his head.

“Fear not, Clinton,” Thor says, clapping a hand on Clint’s shoulder. “I do not believe those who now possess the scepter understand the true scope of its abilities.”

“Great,” Clint mutters, fiddling with the phone in his pocket. He wants to text Tasha. He wants to text his therapist. Only Tasha’s doing something in DC for Steve and he’s not sure his therapist is (a) still alive and (b) not Hydra. Which is just depressing.

Stark takes his phone out and starts typing rapidly. A moment later Clint’s phone vibrates in his hand. He squints at Stark and then pulls it out of his pocket to check the screen.

_Plus, Green With Envy is dead. Don’t look so glum, Katniss._

Clint snorts at the text message. He shoots one back ( _when did you learn tact, stark?_ ) before tucking his phone away and heading for the bar.

He listens, glass of ice water in hand, as Thor offers what information he has on the people who took the scepter. It amounts to exactly what Clint figured it would — Hydra’s got the scepter and the Asgardian suspects they’re doing something nefarious with it.

Obviously, the Avengers have to get it back ASAP.

Text messages go out to Tasha and Steve, who respond to say they’ll be arriving in New York in the next day or two. Clint’s surprised Steve agreed to tag along on this, since it’s not like it’ll be quick or easy. They don’t know where Hydra’s got the scepter or what they’re doing with it except that it’s _not_ opening inter-dimensional portals or fucking with the space-time continuum. Probably. It’s Nazis, though, so Clint’s not ruling anything out.

Turns out Tasha’s info dump from SHIELD’s servers was pretty much riddled with Hydra secrets, which is obviously why she put it all out there in the first place. So they at least have a place to start looking for more intel on the scepter. Chances are good, however, that even if they figure out where it _was,_ its location at the time of the dump, it’ll have been moved to a new, off the books location. God knows Fury had his own secrets that definitely weren’t in any SHIELD records; Hydra shouldn’t be any different.

 

* * *

 

The asset wakes on the flat rooftop. It’s the second morning he’s woken here. He knows he needs to find somewhere else to sleep tonight. If his instincts weren’t urging him to do so, the human head situated on the safety wall ten feet from him would have highlighted the necessity. Beneath the head, which has dripped blood down the outside of the wall, are the contents of one of the Manhattan Hydra caches.

The asset cannot be sure that everything that was in the cache is present on the roof this morning, but he has no reason to suspect that anything of true importance has been taken. In fact, there are two flash drives, a small bag of US dollars, another of British pounds, a third of Euros, blank documentation, a camera to take a picture to affix to the documentation, the name and address of a reputable forger in the city, sixteen knives, four handguns, possibly the most beautiful sniper rifle that the asset has not personally modified, and extra ammo for all of the guns.

Beneath the sniper rifle is a note. The asset blinks.

> _Dear Sir,_
> 
> _Please accept my deepest apologies for my behavior two nights ago in the shadows behind Miguel’s Meaty Burrito Taco Truck. I get a little bit irrational where tacos are concerned, but that’s no excuse for physically accosting another taco-lovin’ individual. I’ve drunk my twenty Bloody Marys and regrown ten toes in penance. It would ease my conscience if you would accept the gifts you find here, no strings attached, as a token of my sincerest desire to make amends. If you have any questions (or want me to introduce you to some other fine, taco-vending vehicles), please don’t hesitate to contact me._
> 
> _Regards,_
> 
> _WWWilson_
> 
> _aka: Deadpool_
> 
> _PS: Please find the toes enclosed in the bubble envelope to your left._
> 
> _PPS: Phone - (347) 555-TACO_

The penmanship is surprisingly legible, and the postscripts are positively ornate.

The asset disassembles the sniper rifle and packs it carefully in his duffel bag. He removes his shoulder holsters from his tac vest, pulling them on and sliding two of the handguns into place before putting the vest back in his duffel. He pulls his jacket back on, then distributes the majority of the knives about his person. The money goes into his duffel along with the remaining weapons and the asset finds himself more comfortable than he thinks he should be.

Traveling via train (but particularly by plane) with excessive weaponry, the voice in the back of his mind reassures him, is ill-advised. At the voice’s insistence, he left everything but a pair of knives in DC when he boarded the train to New York.

The asset opens the envelope and finds that it is, in fact, full of toes. It also contains another note.

> _Dear WS (Sir),_
> 
> _To convey just how totally and completely sorry I am for attempting to Bogart your tacos the other night, I’m leaving you this gift. (Not the toes, they’re still part of my penance, see Note #1. I just didn’t have anywhere else to put them.) Let me introduce you to Charlie Whitmore. He’s very, very dead. He is so dead. That’s because he was trying to run off with one of Hydra’s Manhattan caches. Obviously, he didn’t get far. Again, if you have any questions (seriously, let me introduce you to NYC's other fine, taco-vending vehicles), gimme a call._
> 
> _Regards,_
> 
> _WWWilson_
> 
> _aka: Deadpool_
> 
> _PS: Phone - (347) 555-TACO_
> 
> _PPS: I’m totally down for showing you where Charlie’s friends hang out, if you wanna go for a ride._

The penmanship is as surprisingly legible as it was before and the postscripts are still positively ornate.

The asset does not call the phone number Deadpool provided. He does not have a phone with which to call. However, he does not throw away either of the notes.

He leaves the roof to dispose of the toes and the head. He thinks he should be unnerved and unhappy about how close Deadpool managed to get without waking him, especially considering the number of times the man would have had to climb up to the roof. Factor in the amount of gear Deadpool had to have had on his person, and the asset feels he should be _very_ unnerved and unhappy.

The asset is neither unnerved nor unhappy.

The asset is not entirely sure what he is. It’s possible he’s amused. This is new. He will monitor the situation and report back —

No. There is no one to whom he must report. His handlers are dead.

The asset reminds himself of this. It is sometimes very easy to fall back on old programming, but he will not let himself sink into that pit of repetition. He will not let the handlers have him back. They took his soulmark from him. They took him from Rogers. Yes, he lied to Rogers, but —

The asset leaves this neighborhood.

The asset leaves the neighborhood and plans. The name Charles Whitmore does not cause any memories to surface, but Hydra is a many-headed monster and the asset only met its highest ranking members. And its lowest. He did not meet the men and women in the middle. They are fortunate in that respect. Not fortunate enough, but it gives them a small reprieve, a little bit of extra time during which to get their affairs in order.

The plan is simple.

The plan is rapid.

The plan involves clearing out the second cache and stopping by the safe houses. One, two, three. There is a good chance the safe houses might not even be in use. If they are not, he will take from them what he needs and destroy the rest.

The asset will destroy everything they value.

The asset will burn Hydra’s world to the ground.

It takes him the rest of the day. He does not know which cache Deadpool raided. He does not know, so he checks the one to which he is closest. It is full of money and weapons. It lacks blank documentation. The cache in DC didn’t have blank documentation, either. The asset begins to suspect that Deadpool supplied that. It is possible Hydra no longer makes that sort of thing readily available to its operatives.

It is possible someone might have had the ability to do what the asset could not.

It is possible someone might have attempted to run.

He moves directly to the nearest safe house. There is activity. He conceals himself and observes. There is a woman with two small children. The asset tilts his head to the side. They are twins. They are holding hands as their mother turns to the open apartment building door.

“What’s going _on_ , Jimmy? Why did we have to come here so suddenly? Why are we leaving now?”

“Nothing, babe. Nothing. Just take the kids to your mother’s,” a male voice answers.

The asset narrows his eyes.

“Does this have something to do with your job? With what happened in Washington?”

“Nope,” the male voice replies. And then the man appears in the doorway. He is not large. He is not muscular.

The sight of him sends a shiver of dread and loathing down the asset’s spine. He does not want to fall back on the programming, on the conditioning, but it is for the best in this moment. The asset does not want a memory. He does not want to know what this man might have done to him or might have _had_ done to him. He does not.

The asset allows himself to sink into the calm of a mission in progress mentality. Nothing matters but the objective. The woman and the children will be collateral damage. There is a part of the asset’s mind, a very quiet part that is now muffled by the conditioned state to which he has reverted, that tells him collateral damage is unacceptable. A larger part of his mind, his mission-ready, operational mind, contradicts that quiet voice.

The ends justify the means. Any means are acceptable.

The quiet voice whispers other words to him. The asset knows —

The asset knows —

The asset doesn’t know what he knows, but he trusts the quiet voice. The quiet voice has not lied to him. The quiet voice helped him remember how to breathe. The quiet voice brought him memories of Rogers. The quiet voice —

The quiet voice —

The quiet voice is his and not his and he trusts it. He _trusts_ it.

 _Collateral damage is unacceptable_.

The asset reaffirms that knowledge within his mission-ready, operational mind.

He watches the woman pack the children into a mid-sized SUV. She’s wearing a wedding ring. It glints in the sunlight. She kisses her husband on the cheek. She kisses the monster on the cheek.

The asset cannot look at the man’s face.

The asset cannot.

The asset sits on his heels and pulls his duffel bag over his shoulder. He situates it on the ground in front of him and begins assembling the beautiful sniper rifle. It does not take him long. At this range, it will not be a difficult shot to make. It will not be challenging at all. He will still be careful.

He will remain concealed.

He will —

The asset pauses.

The asset reconsiders his objective. He adjusts his mission parameters. He disassembles the rifle.

There will be no way to keep a death with this MO out of the news. Rogers will —

Rogers will —

Rogers will look for the asset.

Rogers will look.

The asset cannot let Rogers find him.

The asset has too much work to do.

The asset must reshape the world so that it is good enough for Rogers.

The calm of his mission-ready, operational mind shakes and the asset stills. He cannot think of Rogers.

The mid-sized SUV starts, engine turning over. The children are inside. The asset wonders —

The asset wonders about Hydra’s legacy. Will Hydra grow in the hearts of those children without their father’s influence? Will he reach for them from beyond the grave? Will he pass on the sickness in his blood? Has he already?

It would be a simple thing to kill them all. It would be easy. It is the most efficient use of force and skill. It prevents the possibility of Hydra being spawned from one of those children in the future. It would be —

It would be —

The asset does not know what it would be. There is no way for the asset to know. But collateral damage is unacceptable.

The asset waits until the SUV is gone, until it turns the corner. The asset watches the safe house. The neighborhood is quiet. It is a weekday. The probability of neighbors in this area being home right now is low.

It is done quickly. It is done quietly. It is done violently. The man knows from whence his death comes. The asset makes it look like a robbery. There is nothing more he can do to conceal his involvement.

The next safe house is much the same.

The asset finds nonperishable food as well as cash in it while making sure no one will connect the most recent bodies to the one at the first location. He varies his MO. The only commonality is, perhaps, the organization for which the dead worked. It is probable they were all employed by the government in some capacity. There is no way to be sure without more extensive research.

The asset refuses to research these men extensively.

The asset walks.

He walks through neighborhoods as the afternoon dies. He is hot but he likes the heat. He will need to bathe. He has enough cash for a motel room as well as other items that he thinks it will be beneficial to have. That is not what he plans to do with the rest of his afternoon.

The asset stores his duffel bag in a locker in the train station. He takes the train. He does not know where he intends to go, but he knows that the train will get him there. Nothing is overtly familiar, but every now and then a facade or a street will make him pause. He wonders if he knew this place before he fell. He wonders if Rogers would be able to answer that question for him.

But the asset cannot think of Rogers. He cannot.

Thinking about Rogers breaks the mission-ready, operational mind. It puts cracks in the asset’s composure. It brings up memories of things that the asset cannot think about right now, he cannot.

Thinking about Rogers makes his chest ache. It is distracting. The asset cannot afford to be distracted.

The asset cannot afford to be distracted because when he is distracted, people like WWWilson, aka Deadpool, are able to pace him as he walks and that is undesirable.

“Did you get it?”

The asset slides his eyes to the side. He does not reply.

“C’mon, you got it, right? What’d you think?”

The asset shrugs. “I like the rifle.”

“Wanna use it on Charlie’s friends?”

“They’re dead.”

“Sphincter say _what?_ You work _fast_.”

The asset raises his eyebrows.

Deadpool holds out a brown paper bag. It is very large.

“Is that more toes?”

Deadpool laughs like the asset was trying to be funny. The asset was not trying to be funny. He does not want to have to dispose of more toes. “Nah, it’s tacos!”

The asset is not sure what to do with this information.

“C’mon, you like tacos, I like tacos — we can like tacos together!”

The asset stops walking. “No.”

“Aw,” Deadpool says. “I haz a _sad_.” His shoulders droop.

The asset frowns.

“Hey, no, it’s fine. You take the tacos. Miguel packed a _lot_ just for you.”

The asset is not sure what to do with this information, either.

Deadpool jostles the bag.

The asset takes the tacos. It is highly unlikely that Deadpool has access to a poison that the asset’s serum-enhanced system cannot break down.

He gives Deadpool a look and the other man shakes his head but turns to leave. The asset watches him walk away. He practices evasive maneuvers and takes security precautions again. He does not like the idea of Deadpool finding him even though the man brought him presents that morning.

The motel he stays in that night is much the same as the one in DC. Anonymous. Serviceable. The water in the shower is hot. The asset does not let himself think about Rogers or the men he killed today. He uses all of the very small bar of soap and wonders if the man at the front desk will give him another if he asks.

He eats all of the tacos.

They are all filled with fish and very spicy.

 

* * *

 

Clint is staring at the coffeemaker in the common area kitchen when the elevator pings behind him. He’s been in the Tower for a half hour so far today and he knows, he _knows_ if he just narrows his eyes and glares intently enough, Jarvis will make the coffeemaker give him coffee. He doesn’t check to see who has come in behind him because he doesn’t hear footsteps and Jarvis hasn’t warned him about intruders. That means it’s Tasha.

His morning-head deduction is proven correct when she rests a hand on his shoulder and reaches around him to hit a button on the coffeemaker. It spits out a whole cup of delicious, caffeinated liquid and Clint curls his hands around the mug as he finally turns around. “ _Magic_ ,” he mumbles, freeing one hand so he can slide an arm around her shoulders. She rests against his chest and suppresses a yawn of her own. She must’ve just gotten in from the airport.

“Mm…” Tasha hums quietly, her eyes half-closed, before reaching out and taking his mug from him. He doesn’t begrudge her the coffee, though, since she’s the one who put forth the effort to push the button.

“Hey,” Clint murmurs, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Everything is go-go-go for them these days and that’s fine, whatever. But Clint wants an actual vacation with sand and sun and really blue water and tiki torches. The tiki torches are key.

“Hey,” she says, handing the coffee back.

“’Sup with Steve?”

“He’s finishing up a strategy session with Sam,” she says, voice soft. “He’ll be here soon.”

“Mkay,” Clint says. “What’re they strategizing about?”

“Sam’s gonna do street-level sweeps for Barnes,” Tasha says. “While Steve’s helping Thor with the scepter. But if Sam finds anything, Steve’ll drop the scepter for Barnes in a heartbeat.”

It’s Clint’s turn to hum quietly. “Can’t really blame him,” he says. “I mean. If it was you, I’m pretty sure this scepter thing wouldn’t be able to keep me from going off to find you.”

“Liar,” she says, but she’s smiling. Clint considers that for a moment, then shakes his head minutely. She discounts herself and what she means to him. He knows _she’d_ be able to hold out and do the ‘right’ thing if he dropped off the grid, but Clint’s not really built that way.

He hums again rather than refuting her assertion, since she already knows. She has to know. It’s been years, she can’t doubt him on that front.

“Aw,” Tony coos at them. “Look at the world class, super-spy-assassins.”

Clint and Tasha don’t say a word, but suddenly there’s a knife embedded in the wall near Tony’s head and she’s pointing a handgun at the billionaire’s chest. Neither of them moved more than one arm.

“Well,” Stark says, eyeing the knife and then the gun. “That’ll get you buzzin’ quicker than a shot of vodka with juice.”

Clint snorts. “No, Tony.”

“You two are no fun in the morning,” he says, prying the knife from the wall and offering it to Clint hilt-first. “Where’d you even pull that from, anyway?”

“I could tell you,” Clint said, smiling sleepily. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

Tasha laughs against his chest and then pulls away, obviously having reached her limit for public displays of affection. The gun has disappeared into the ether from which it came. “I’ve got some coordinates I’d like you to check on,” she says, pulling her phone from a pocket to shoot Tony a text. “Tell me what that is. I know what SHIELD’s incredibly compromised database says is there, but I think it’s something more.”

“You got it,” Stark says, nodding easily as he opens the text message and sends it to Jarvis for analysis. “It might take a day or two, but J’ll find out everything there is to know about those coordinates.”

“And in the meantime, we’re waiting for…” Clint trails off into a yawn.

“Steve’s in the city. He said he’d be here by ten,” Tasha says.

“In the morning?” Clint asks, propping himself up against the counter behind him and offering Tasha his mug again.

Taking the mug, she murmurs, “Yes, in the morning. Where are Thor and Bruce?”

“Brucie’s probably in the middle of his tantric yoga thing and Thor is… you know what, actually, I have no idea where Thor is,” Tony says, looking up from the holographic screen just pulled up out of nowhere.

Clint tries to find the projector, but he’s got no actual idea where it might be in relation to the position of the hologram, and he hasn’t had enough caffeine for that type of mental calculation, anyway. “Probably sleeping,” he mutters. “Like a sane person.”

“Or visiting Doctor Foster in London,” Tasha suggests, finishing the coffee and putting it back on the machine so when she hits the button, the liquid goes into the mug, exactly where it’s supposed to go.

“Foster… Foster — right, astrophysicist. She keeps turning me down every time I offer to pay for all her stuff,” Stark says, frowning. “Maybe now she’ll say yes. Since, y’know. SHIELD isn’t really a thing anymore, and she probably needs funding.”

Clint doesn’t bother pointing out that there are _lots_ of organizations other than Stark Industries that will probably be more than willing to give the doc however much money she wants, considering her particular area of expertise. He just stays quiet and makes grabby hands at the coffee mug when the machine stops brewing his single cup.

Maybe he and Tasha will be able to get dinner somewhere nice tonight, since they’re in a holding pattern until they have more information. That’d be fun.

 

* * *

  

> Here’s the thing about Wade’s soulmark — yes, he’s _got_ one. Or actually, he’s got like three. But that’s not the point. The _point_ is that the big one, the one that's supposed to really _mean_ something — it’s weird. It’s _so_ weird. And that’s saying a lot, considering Wade’s the one saying it.
> 
> Somebody once told him — and Wade decided he liked this idea, so that’s why it stuck with him — that his soulmate must be _mercurial_.
> 
> Wade wasn’t 100% sure he knew what that meant so he looked it up. He’s not stupid, he’s just easily distracted. But he’s really good with a gun. (And a knife. And a sword. Or two. He’s really, _really_ good with _two_ swords.)
> 
> But Wade decided he liked the idea that his soulmate is _mercurial_.
> 
> Jesus, they have to be that, at the very least, if not completely off-their-rocker-style bonkers.
> 
> His mark didn’t even show up until 1989, so his mercurial soulmate is just a _baby_ and Wade isn’t sure he knows how to handle that. But then, whoever his soulmate is, they’re also pretty awesome.
> 
> See, here’s the thing about Wade’s soulmark: it’s weird.
> 
> It started out, November of 1989, as a question mark. And how cute is that, his soulmate’s a Valentine’s Day Baby — conceived on the eve of the day invented by greeting card companies the world over for couples to express their love for one another and have sex. Lots of sex. Valentine’s Day Babies mean lots of sex, Wade’s almost sure about that. But that’s not important. What’s _important_ is the question mark. That’s what Wade’s soulmark was. It changed fonts a lot. He knows because he took pictures and looked them all up. He liked it best when his soulmate went with Wingdings for like three weeks in ’96. That one was pretty great.
> 
> So Wade’s soulmark is weird. It has literally _never_ been consistent. After the question mark, there were a lot of music notes and then one of those huge drums marching bands carry around. In 2003, it was just the word ‘fuck’ in Spanish. That one was interesting because, at that point, Weapon-X had gotten a hold of him and messed with his cancer, so it was doing all kinds of weird stuff, but it hadn’t scarred his face up yet. So the soulmark had started to move around, and most of the time, he could cover it up with his clothes or a convenient holster. But that one… well. Let’s just say Wade wore turtlenecks for six days in Colombia in July and he decided he and his soulmate were definitely going to have to have _words_ about that kind of thing, that was just not cool. Wade couldn’t actually _die_ but he could _wish_ he was dead and staying hydrated had been a _bitch._
> 
> Wade’s soulmark turned into a _hammer_ for a month in 2011. That wasn’t a big deal, it just sort of lived on the right side of his rib cage for a while. Then the words “mew mew” showed up in big, bubble letters trailing along behind the hammer, which got little lines after it that Wade guessed meant the hammer was flying around.
> 
> Wade’s not stupid, he’s just easily distracted.
> 
> Wade heard about some massive, government manpower being moved around in New Mexico and he got in touch with his friend, Willie, to find out what the hell was going on. Willie told him his neighbor found something in the desert. Willie’s neighbor apparently lost the bumper on his pickup trying to move the thing, and Willie was too busy laughing at him to give Wade any real details. But that’s not important. The important thing is that the item Willie’s neighbor found was a hammer and nobody could lift it. Wade had visions of being the once and future king of the desert. But he had a job lined up in Jakarta so he just sort of shrugged and wondered what his soulmate was doing in New Mexico with SHIELD, of all the organizations they could’ve picked to work for.
> 
> They really _were_ going to have to have a talk. It was a thing that was going to have to happen.
> 
> And _then_ aliens invaded.
> 
> Like, legit aliens.
> 
> Ugly ones.
> 
> Wade was not a fan.
> 
> He did not approve.
> 
> His soulmark turned into a palm tree but it wasn’t a _happy_ palm tree, which _—_ Wade hadn’t even known that palm trees could _be_ sad.
> 
> And _then_ the world tried to end _again_. Which, what? What is _with_ the world these days? Can’t it just exist like it’s always existed? Let a mercenary jump off a crashing semi in Argentina without falling through random-assed _portals into other universes_ or whatever?
> 
> Wade sat down after hopping back through a portal thing and onto what he hoped was his Earth. Turns out he’d somehow moved from Argentina to the middle of nowhere, North Carolina. His soulmark had moved to his leg, which he only noticed because his suit had a rip down the right leg and he could see lines on the scarred tissue of his calf that hadn’t been there before. So he stripped down to see what it was now and… it was a pole. A weird looking pole. Wade just shook his head and went to find a taco truck that served Korean tater tots because he figured this meant he was going to have to go to New York and he didn’t _like_ New York but if his soulmate was doing things with the goddamn _Avengers…_ well. He needed to get in on that.
> 
> Besides, he was kind of excited. Maybe he’d actually get to meet them and they wouldn’t write him off like pretty much everyone else.
> 
> See, here’s the thing about Wade’s soulmark — he didn’t get it until after Weapon-X had chewed him up and spit him back out, until after the cancer and the tumors and the crazy had all been well established. And that was fine. It’s not his soulmate’s fault that it took them so long to be born. But here’s the thing — for a really long time, Wade was just… Wade was lonely in a way that sex and Blind Al and Weasel couldn’t fix.
> 
> Wade refused to think about it, though, because. Well. Because.

 

* * *

 

“I refuse to think about it, though, because. Well.”

“Wilson.” This is the third time the asset has said the mercenary’s name.

“ _Because_ , Soldier.”

“Wilson, I am going to gut you.” The mercenary _literally_ dropped out of nowhere and plopped himself down at the asset’s small table over half an hour ago. He has not stopped talking since.

“Promises, promises,” Wilson sing-songs, waggling his eyebrows. “Oh, _c’mon_ ,” he says when his eyebrow waggles don’t get a reaction. “I’m trying to _woo_ you, Soldier!”

The asset stares at the mercenary, expression flat, and waits until Wilson begins to fidget before he says, “I don’t need to know about your soulmark. I don’t need to be wooed. I need to know how much you charge for extended, multi-part jobs.”

Wilson hums, fingertips tapping out a rapid beat on the table in front of him. “Depends on who I’m killing.”

“Hydra.”

“Well, I can’t kill _all_ of them. I don’t know where they all live.”

“I know where they are. I will pay you to help me kill them.”

Wilson raises his face and the asset can tell, he can _tell_ that the mercenary’s eyebrows have shot toward his hairline beneath his mask. “The _Winter Soldier_ wants my help.” Wilson doesn’t even have the decency to make it an actual question.

The asset exhales slowly and pushes a piece of fish around on the foil the tacos came wrapped in. He doesn’t trust other tacos. The fish tacos still haven’t made him sick. Grudgingly, he picks up the little piece of fish and eats it. “Yes,” he says.

“Shit, I’ll do it for free,” Wilson says, and he’s smiling beneath that mask. The asset doesn’t know how he knows that but he does, exactly the same way he knew about the eyebrows.

“I want that in writing,” the asset says.

“Fine, fine.” The mercenary stands up and goes to the taco truck to steal a pen and a napkin. He comes back to the table and the asset watches as Wilson scrawls something on the napkin. Then he produces a knife from somewhere and slices his thumb open. After smearing some blood under the scrawl, Wilson considers his handiwork. He picks the pen back up and writes something else, then hands the asset the napkin and claps his hands in excitement. “Yay!”

The asset thinks fleetingly that he is going to come to regret this decision. He wonders where Wilson put the knife.

But he needs firepower and experience and he worked in tandem with Wilson on a mission many, many years ago. (1990, if the mercenary is to be believed.) He doesn’t recall the details, but he knows that Wilson can at least hold his own in a fight. And he is virtually impossible to kill.

Reading over the napkin, the asset frowns slightly. It looks like Wilson is agreeing to work with the asset indefinitely, free of charge, as long as they are actively dismantling Hydra. Beneath the smear of blood is the second thing the mercenary wrote, which indicates that Wilson reserves the right to ask the asset to return the favor where Weapon-X is concerned. The asset is willing to agree to these terms.

“Meet me in Clermont-Ferrand in three days,” the asset says, nodding to the other man as he stands and turns to leave.

“Are you bringing the tacos?”

The asset pauses and looks over his shoulder at the mercenary. “What?”

“The tacos. Are you bringing them?”

“No.”

“You _should_. But I can probably set us up with some quality tacos if we stop in Ireland.”

The asset considers this, a slight frown pulling his brows down as he turns away and continues walking. “Okay. Fish tacos.”

“Sweet!” Wilson claps again but the sound cuts off abruptly.

The asset does not turn around to look at Wilson because he knows the mercenary is already gone.

 

* * *

 

Clint’s got a bagel jammed mostly in his mouth and Lucky on a leash as they head into the Tower and over to the elevator. He’s glad he’s got one hand free to hold onto the dog as he does the thumbprint and retinal scan. He’ll probably get in trouble if he lets Lucky just run around or whatever. Not that he’s been doing a lot of running lately. Probably time to check with the vet about the kind of old-dog food he should be eating to keep his bones strong — dogs get osteoarthritis, right?

Frowning as they get on the elevator, Clint thinks about that for a moment, then decides he’ll ask Bruce. Bruce is a doctor, he should know things like that. The doors slide open on the common floor a few moments later, a quite ping announcing his arrival. He finds Tasha looking exceedingly unimpressed as she guards a cup of coffee from Stark’s grasping little hands.

Narrowing his eyes, Clint lets Lucky off his leash and walks over to the kitchen to grab a knife. He cuts the bagel in half and then hands the half that wasn’t in his mouth to Tasha.

“Oh my _God_ , you two are the absolute _worst_ ,” Stark says, eyes snapping from one of them to the other as Tasha hands Clint the coffee cup. “I don’t think I can handle this level of domesticity. Stop it. Stop it now.”

Clint presses a kiss to her temple, then shrugs at Tony and takes a sip of sweet, dark, wonderful caffeine.

“I texted Jane. She says Thor left an hour ago. He should be here soon,” Tasha says as though Tony hadn’t actually spoken. She puts her own coffee on the counter in front of her before leaning down to run her fingers through the soft fur between Lucky’s ears. She smiles.

They still need to talk about her new soulmark and they should probably discuss what the changes in his mean, but he figures they have time. “Are we waiting for everyone else before you spill the beans?” Clint asks, raising his eyebrows at Stark as he takes an actual bite out of his half of the bagel.

“Yeah, might as well,” Tony says with a shrug. “Then I won’t have to repeat myself four times.”

“Solid plan,” Clint says, nodding easily as Lucky leans against his leg, tail thumping the carpet.

“Genius,” Tony says, snorting softly as he points at himself.

“And so modest,” Tasha murmurs, burying her nose in her coffee cup in a mediocre attempt to hide her eyeroll.

“Gasp! Shock!” Tony exclaims, one hand clutching his t-shirt over the spot where his arc reactor used to be. Clint wonders if he’ll ever not take note of that difference. For so much of the time that he’s known Tony, the blue-white glow was there and now that it’s not, it’s just… weird. “Never say such slanderous things about me,” Tony continues.

Tasha laughs, a real laugh, and Clint’s glad.

The elevator pings, alerting them to Bruce’s otherwise silent entrance to the common floor. Clint turns and gives the man a finger wave as he says, “Hey, so Tony says you’re into tantric yoga.”

Bruce just gives a very put-upon sigh and shakes his head, making his way toward the electric kettle on the counter to start his tea. “Yoga yes. Tantric, not so much,” he says. “Hey, Natasha.”

She nods to acknowledge him, taking a bite of her bagel.

Tony asks Bruce some kind of science question that Clint doesn’t really follow, mostly because he’s not paying attention. They’re really getting into whatever it is they’re talking about when the elevator pings again and Captain America himself walks onto the floor.

“Steve,” Tasha says, nodding to him.

“Oh captain, my captain,” Tony exclaims, interrupting himself in the middle of whatever he was saying to turn and feign a sincere expression.

Steve shakes his head and gives the room at large a salute. “Who’re we waiting on, just Thor?”

“Just Thor,” Clint confirms.

“And Maria,” Tony adds.

“Hill?” Steve asks, brows rising. “She relocated that quick?”

“We did,” Tasha points out with a shrug.

“True,” Steve says, snagging an orange from a bowl of fruit on the counter.

He’s halfway through peeling it into one long, curling piece of rind when Thor lands on the roof, having actually flown himself rather than using the Bifrost. Once he walks in, Stark asks Jarvis to alert Hill and they all sit around a table in what would be considered a dining room if there were any walls. Since there aren’t, Clint just sits next to Tasha with Lucky laying on his feet and sips his coffee.

Hill walks in a few minutes later, perfectly coiffed and looking ready to take on whatever the day might throw at her. Clint’s still not sure how he feels about all of this _awakeness_ people have going on, but he’s not the one who’s going to be doing the majority of the talking, so he figures he’ll just let it ride.

“Alright, people. Now that we’re assembled,” Tony waggles his eyebrows a bit, like he thinks he’s being especially clever. Clint folds his arms on the table and rests his forehead on them, closing his eyes as Stark continues talking. “Debrecen, Hungary. Let me tell you about it — ”

And so begins the Avengers’ Quest for Loki’s Scepter.

Clint’s pretty sure it’s not actually called that. It’s also _definitely_ not called the Glowstick of Destiny, no matter what Tony says. Clint’s _very_ sure Steve is entirely unimpressed with a plan that basically amounts to, “Run around to whichever Hydra bases we can find using this unreliable data Natasha’s got and hope the scepter’s actually in one of them.”

Sighing, Clint sits up and rubs his eyes, finishing off his now-cold coffee as Hill starts in on the logistics. It’s at this point that Steve _does_ actually get involved in the discussion. They have the blueprints for the building that houses the Hydra facility and, based on prior experience, he has some valuable input to offer. Mostly, he talks about failsafes, self-destruct sequences, and how it’ll be really great if they avoid those.

Clint ticks ‘definitely avoid’ next to ‘self-destruct sequences in Hydra bases’ on his mental list of everything they’ve discussed so far. Leaning forward once they get to the part of the conversation to which he’s best equipped to contribute, he points out where their snipers are likely to be and then, using one of Stark’s nifty holographic screens, zooms out to show them where he thinks it’ll be best to station him so he can snipe the snipers before the Avengers get sniped.

Stark and Thor will provide air support while Clint joins Tasha and Steve after dealing with the snipers to enter the complex and see what they can see. Hulk will provide a difficult-to-ignore disturbance at the front gate.

Bruce is uncomfortable with the mission assignments. “I’m just saying,” he says, gesturing to the holographic map. “This is the _second biggest_ city in Hungary. We should maybe consider _not_ dropping the other guy into the middle of a civilian population.”

“The facility is on the outskirts of the city. And we’ve got a plan to deal with that if he gets out of hand,” Tony points out, eyebrows rising.

“Veronica isn’t — ”

“Going to be any more ready to deal with him than she is right now if we don’t field test her,” Stark interrupts.

Bruce rubs the heels of his palms against his closed eyes and Clint gets the impression this is a well-worn argument between the scientists.

Whatever they decide, Clint’s got his job and Hill’s coordinating ground support for after they’ve handled the bulk of the facility’s defenses, so he’s good to go.

He wonders briefly where Fury is, what he’s doing, how many pies he’s got his fingers in now that SHIELD’s network is on the rocks. But Fury’s not sitting at the table with them, he’s not offering any extra intel, so Clint guesses it’s not actually all that important, what Fury might be doing.

 

* * *

 

“You know,” Wilson says, his mask pulled halfway up his face so he can speak and eat at the same time. “This wasn’t exactly what I thought we’d be doing.”

They’re eating tacos.

The asset doesn’t know where Wilson found them in France, but they have fish in them. Wilson declared them tiny treats of dead aquatic marvelousness. The asset doesn’t know about that, but they do taste good. The asset likes the spices.

“Having surveilled the area, we’re waiting for the target to arrive.”

“We’re _waiting_ ,” Wilson repeats, frowning at the word as though it’s insulted him. His scars are partially visible thanks to his lifted mask, but the asset has seen worse. The asset doesn’t understand ‘normal’ people and their preoccupation with looks. The scars don’t lessen Wilson’s accuracy with a thrown blade or hinder his swiftness when engaging in hand-to-hand combat. “We should go kill the target. Save time. We should be _proactive_ , Soldier.”

The asset frowns and takes another bite of his taco. After chewing, he says, “Acting on incomplete or inaccurate intel will result in an unsatisfactory conclusion to the mission.”

“It’s only unsatisfactory if you say it’s unsatisfactory.”

“I have to destroy them. _All_ of them.”

“But this is _boring_. We’ve been here almost a whole _day_ and I haven’t killed anybody even _once_.”

The asset snorts softly, one corner of his lips quirking upward despite himself.

“Wait. Wait, wait, _wait_. Was that — oh my God, that was an _emotion_. That was _amusement_. Oh sweet, salty guacamole, I made the Winter Soldier almost smile,” Wilson says, pulling his phone out. “Don’t panic,” the mercenary mutters, tapping rapidly at his touchscreen.

“What are you doing?” The asset asks, eyes narrowing.

“Texting Weasel. He won’t believe me, but I have to remember this day. It has to go on the calendar. Oh, by the way, the Wheeze says incoming, ETA three minutes. We should finish our tacos.”

“Incoming,” the asset says, voice flat.

“The guy we’ve been waiting for, he’s on his way,” Wilson says, gesturing toward the window.

“You’ve had him monitoring the courier’s progress the entire time.”

“Sure, might as well. Seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway,” Wilson says with a shrug.

“But you were bored.”

“Of course I was. Waiting is always boring.”

“Well,” the asset says, considering the last of his taco. “Okay, then.”

An hour later, the asset hisses, “We are _never_ doing that again.”

“That was _awesome_ ,” Wilson says, pressing one of his hands against the bloody hole in his side. He fell from the roof and impaled himself on a pole, but Wilson was nothing if not creative enough to get himself _off_ the pole while the asset actually killed Hydra’s courier and snatched the miniaturized hard drive as well as whatever paper files the man had on him.

“You are _insane_.”

“Aw, _shucks_ , Soldier. You say the nicest things,” Wilson coos.

The asset wipes blood off of his face and fights the urge to scowl. They have satisfactorily concluded the mission.

Several minutes pass as they finish cleaning themselves up and wipe down the apartment they used as a base of operations. “So where are we heading next?” Wilson asks.

The asset taps the pocket where he’s stored the flash drive. “You’re going wherever you go when you’re in France and you need to lay low. I’m going somewhere to analyze the intel we just acquired. I’ll be in touch once I’ve got a bead on our next target.”

“I thought you said you knew where they were,” Wilson says.

“I know vaguely where they are,” the asset answers. “Clermont-Ferrand is a stopping point for couriers. The base is somewhere underground in Lyon. But there are access codes that I need and authorization codes to make sure they don’t activate the self-destruct protocols while we’re inside the complex or after we’re gone. I need to be sure. You might survive being crushed — hell, _I_ might survive being crushed. That doesn’t mean I _want_ to get crushed.”

Wilson considers that for a moment before nodding. “That’s fair. I’ll catch you on the flip side, Soldier.”

 

* * *

 

Clint takes out the three snipers at the Debrecen complex in less than ninety seconds. He’s got a very limited window of opportunity for that part of the operation before he needs to be out of his nest and over to the secondary location. It’s lucky the facility itself is as far outside the city as it is, or it would have been a lot more complicated to coordinate rendezvous points. Tasha and Steve are already there when he arrives and they take a moment to do a basic inventory check even though none of them have lost anything or even engaged a hostile one on one yet. Better safe than sorry.

Once they make it into the complex, they split up. He goes high, she goes low, and Steve takes the middle. It’s their usual split. They’re lucky that there’s only one basement level to this facility. If Clint was less professional than he is, he’d probably be a little distracted by the way Tasha scythes through Hydra agent after Hydra agent on her way to the side door that will lead her downstairs. Watching her work is always an exercise in sincere appreciation, so Clint allows himself ten seconds to just enjoy the view.

That’s all the time he gets before she starts making comments about having to do all the work.

Steve makes an inside version of the distraction the Hulk is causing outside, pulling attention away from Tasha so she’s better able to slip downstairs using the ID she took off a scientist on her way to the door. Clint concentrates on shooting people who look like they’re getting too close to Cap and making sure none of the goons make it to the control panels Steve warned them about.

Somebody initiating a self-destruct sequence right now would really harsh his mellow.

The whole thing is over in less than an hour.

“Look, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it,” Clint says, propping up a wall as Tasha and Tony do their hacking thing. “I feel a little bit let down.”

“What, because we didn’t find the scepter?” Steve asks, brows rising.

“No,” Clint says, shaking his head. “I was led to believe this would be a _lot_ more challenging than it actually was.”

“Dammit, Barton,” Tony mutters. “You’ve _jinxed_ us now.” A moment of silence hangs in the air as everyone turns to look at Tony. He pauses mid-mutter and blinks at all of them. “Oh, not right this second.” Waving a hand, he dismisses them. “Go back to your post-mission powwow. But when the next place we hit is full of STRIKE teams armed to the teeth _and_ somebody activates the self-destruct sequence, I know who I’m blaming.”

Bruce frowns at a computer screen off to the side. He’s not a hacker, but once Tony got into the system, it was simple enough for the other scientist to take over a monitor and start poking through the data that hadn’t been erased. Some enterprising Hydra agent actually attempted to delete everything, but some quick technogenius interference on Stark’s part has left them with plenty of data to mine. “Tony, give me a flash drive.” Bruce’s wrapped in a blanket, wearing his usual stretchy, Hulk-proof pants. The blanket doesn’t bode well for him managing to catch the miniature drive if Tony actually chucks one to him.

Tony tosses him one without actually looking to make sure he’s throwing it in the right direction. Luckily, Steve catches it and hands it to Bruce before it beans him in the head. The Avengers are only going to have to pay for repairs to _one_ public building and three private ones due to Hulk-related damages. That’s pretty good. _And_ they didn’t have to call in Veronica.

Clint isn’t actually sure what Veronica _is_ , but if she’s meant to handle the Hulk, he’s not exactly sure he _wants_ to know.

“But seriously,” Clint says, frowning. “I didn’t even get to try out the new explosive arrowheads, Tony. Does anyone _else_ feel like maybe this was a cakewalk for a reason?”

“Your paranoia is showing, Barton,” Tasha murmurs.

“Hey, it’s only paranoia if you’re wrong,” Clint replies, brows rising.

“Spoken like a true spy,” Tony says with a grin.

“The scepter is not here,” Thor says, entering the facility’s central command.

“We weren’t sure that it would be,” Steve says. “This is only the first base we’ve hit. There are others.”

“I dread the mischief such a tool might enable in the hands of this _Hydra_ ,” Thor says, looking around the room as though he might make the scepter miraculously appear out of thin air. “What weapons might they create using it as a template?”

“About that,” Bruce murmurs. He says it softly. If the others had continued their discussion, Clint might not have picked up on it. But Bruce spoke into one of their rare moments of silence, which means _everyone_ heard him. So everyone turns to look at him.

“What’ve you got, Bruce?” Tony asks, moving over to stand close — but not too close — to the other man.

“I’ll need to look at this back at the Tower for confirmation,” Bruce prefaces. “But… Thor, do you know anything about the scepter being able to… I don’t know, warp or manipulate human genetic material?”

Clint’s glad he’s already leaning against the wall. His knees go a little watery. Normally, he can handle discussion of Thor’s douchebag brother and his skeevy scepter just fine. He doesn’t like talking about what happened when Loki ripped into his mind on waves of blue so hot it felt like his very thoughts had iced over, but he can generally manage to listen to other people when they bring it up. Just — not right now, apparently.

Tasha very loudly taps several buttons on the keyboard she’s standing in front of and then straightens so she can walk over to him. She doesn’t lean against him but she does stand beside him, her shoulder barely brushing his arm, and that’s enough. That’s enough, for the moment.

“I do not,” Thor answers gravely, and it takes Clint a moment to realize the others all glanced toward him at Bruce’s question.

Right. Because if anyone is going to have accidentally gotten some alien DNA spliced into their own, it’d be him.

Clint can’t even dispute that, since he _was_ directly exposed to the scepter for an extended period of time.

“Well, let’s get all of this back to the lab so I can go over it in more detail,” Bruce says.

“Right-o,” Tony agrees, clapping his hands. He pulls several flash drives out of the ports where he’d inserted them earlier, then walks over to the suit and lets it enfold him.

“Coffee?” Tasha asks as she turns to face Clint.

“Sure,” he says, scrubbing his hands over the top of his head and pushing away from the wall.

“I hear they’ve got some good stuff here, we could probably pick up a few bags to take back to New York before we have to be back on the Quinjet,” she says.

“We’ve gotta set the charges here, anyway,” Tony offers.

“Why don’t you two take Bruce and Thor? Tony and I can handle rigging the explosives,” Steve says, nodding.

“I’m still not sure blowing it up is necessarily the right course of action,” Bruce says. It’s the third time he’s said as much since they’ve been in the control room. Clint’s still not sure what he thinks he’s going to accomplish by repeating himself. Tony’s definitely not listening and Steve’s in no mood to let a Hydra base remain standing.

“C’mon, doc. Let’s go find some coffee. Tea for you. Coffee for me,” Clint says, already walking toward the door.

“Chocolate for me,” Tasha chimes in.

“There is an item of particular significance which Darcy has charged me to return with,” Thor says, following Clint. The Asgardian frowns before saying, “Bear sugar?”

“Oh, Medve Cukor!” Tasha says.

Clint thinks she sounds a little too enthusiastic about that particular kind of candy. “Ew, gross,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Hush, you,” Tasha says, herding Bruce from the room once he’s snagged the flash drive with all of the medical data on it.

“It’s like licorice plus _—_ I don’t know, treacle pudding or something,” Clint argues, brows furrowed. “And after like two bites, you can’t actually chew it anymore! You can barely swallow it.”

“Why does Darcy want Hungarian licorice candy, Thor?” Bruce asks.

“I believe it has sentimental value. Her grandmother made it for her when she was young,” Thor answers. “The recipe has long been lost to her and she has been unable to locate it in the United States. I understand she hoped to acquire a ready supply in England, but alas.”

 _Alas_ , Clint mouths at Tasha. She smiles at him, the half-smile where it looks like she’s trying really hard not to let her amusement show but she can’t help herself. It’s one of his favorite smiles.

An hour later, Tony and Steve meet them in a candy shop in the middle of the city. They hear an ominous rumble shortly thereafter. “Jesus, how much C4 did you guys use?” Clint asks.

“Enough,” Steve says, a note of finality in his voice.

“Well,” Clint says, glancing toward Tasha with a shrug. “As long as you’re happy. Here, try this, Cap. Tell me what you think about Eredeti Szerencsi. It’s basically a ton of nuts with some chocolate involved. And a wafer.”

 

* * *

 

“We need to get to Lyon now,” the asset says into the phone caught between his shoulder and his ear.

“I’m a little tied up,” Wilson replies, voice echoing oddly over the line.

“Cut the rope,” the asset replies, exasperated.

“Oh, I love that game!”

“Wilson.”

“Alright, alright. I’m cutting the rope, I’m cutting the rope. Bye bye, rope. You’re nowhere _near_ as cute as Om Nom, Soldier. I want you to know that. Also, you never give me gold stars,” Wilson mutters.

The asset isn’t sure what the mercenary is actually doing as he supposedly cuts the ropes tying him up, but it involves a fair bit of discussion in Japanese about monetary compensation for services rendered. The asset speaks Japanese, but he does not feel that it would be in his best interests to inform Wilson of this fact. Especially because Wilson should _assume_ the asset speaks a language as advantageous as Japanese. Also, the asset is fairly certain having this kind of information about the mercenary is just good business. Wilson should _also_ assume that the asset’s serum-enhanced hearing will allow him to listen to the conversation despite whatever the mercenary is holding over the mouthpiece.

This does not mean the asset will do anything with the knowledge that Wilson apparently pays exorbitant amounts of money to someone who does nothing but watch a woman in Jujo, which isapparently a small town located somewhere outside Tokyo. But the asset appreciates having information.

Once the mercenary completes the transaction, he comes back on the line. “I’ll be there in like two hours. With bells on, boss.”

They meet in Lyon three hours later. The asset was already there, of course, decoding the necessary authorizations and laying the groundwork for the next step of the plan.

“Ugh, okay, I’m _here._ What am I blowing up? Who am I killing?” Wilson walks into the basement apartment that is their safe house and flops onto a chair. He’s wearing a very loud maroon and orange, flower-patterned Hawaiian shirt over his red and black suit. His shorts are neon green. There are actual bells looped like a lei around his throat.

The asset allows himself one blink to take in that color scheme, decides he trusts Wilson’s ability to sneak into places even wearing _that_ , and unrolls the map of the underground compound they’ll be dealing with.

“Wait,” Wilson said, reaching for a banana. He raises the bottom half of his mask before he peels the fruit, then points at the map. “Infiltration?”

“I’ll be infiltrating,” the asset answers. “You’ll be wreaking havoc at the front door. Also, killing as many people as you can. I brought you an RPG launcher.”

“Oh _goody_ ,” Wilson grins, taking a bite out of his banana. “ _That_ sounds like my kind of party.”

“We’re playing to our strengths,” the asset comments, outlining the mercenary’s entrance and three possible exits for him to utilize once the asset has signaled him.

“I can always blow this wall over here, too,” Wilson points out, indicating a load-bearing wall on the compound’s northern side.

“That’ll bring the upper three floors down on your head.”

“Right, but it’ll open up a gap, probably, that leads into either the sewers or a series of caves, I can’t remember which,” Wilson says, shrugging. “Didn’t say it was option numero uno, compadre.”

The asset allows his eyes to lose focus briefly, the map still in his sights, as he overlays these recent blueprints with the older versions with which he has familiarized himself. He stacks them in his mind and rotates them until he can see the wall the mercenary indicated on all of them. From there, he shifts the mental maps until he can see what’s beside the load-bearing wall.

“Sewer system, but you can get anywhere once you’re in it. If you have to go that way,” the asset says, tilting his head to the side, “Contact me on the burner and I’ll leave a vehicle for you.”

“Sure,” Wilson says, but he finishes the banana and pulls his mask down as he says it. The asset is 87% sure that he will not be getting a phone call from the other man, should he use that exit strategy.

Six hours and at least thirty bodies later, the asset decides he will buy himself a croissant. Wilson did not call him for an assist after blowing the load-bearing wall at the base. If he had made a bet with himself, he rationalizes, he would have won. But the asset does not place bets.

He will eat his croissant with jam.

“Ow.”

The asset looks at Wilson over the last bite of his croissant and raises his eyebrows.

“Hey, just because I _can_ heal bullet holes in like sixty seconds doesn’t mean I _like_ doing it. It still _hurts_ ,” Wilson says, scowling. The asset can tell he’s scowling because, once again, the mercenary’s mask is pulled up at the bottom. His scarred lips are pressed into a thin line, the corners pinched together so tightly they’ve gone faintly white.

The asset pops the last piece of pastry into his mouth and chews, then says, “Dodge better.”

“Dodge _better_ , he says,” Wilson mutters, picking up another bullet from the floor after it bounces around a little and then rolls to a stop. The mercenary’s body expels bullets quickly. The asset’s body does not operate as fast, but the results are similar.

“Yes, dodge better,” the asset responds, tossing Wilson another foil-wrapped taco. “We’re leaving for Olsztyn, Poland in thirty minutes.”

“Excellent,” the mercenary replies, unwrapping his taco. He makes a face but shrugs and takes a bite. There is silence for almost twenty seconds before Wilson raises his eyebrows beneath the mask and says, “So, I’ve been hearing things.”

The asset does not bother with a verbal response, intent instead on uploading the entirety of the flash drive to which he transferred the files he acquired in the Hydra base to a private server. The facility had not been updated in at least two decades, so its technology was not difficult to crack. The base’s disuse and relative age made it a prime first target. The asset would not get the kind of sensitive intel he requires to bring down more important installations, but dealing with Hydra is like playing any game of strategy — remove the pawns supporting the major players and it’s easier to eliminate the heavy hitters. And Lyon gave him the authorization codes for Olsztyn, which will give him what he needs for their subsequent target. He just raises an eyebrow to acknowledge that he heard the mercenary speak.

“Things,” Wilson repeats, shoving the last of his taco into his mouth. He continues speaking around the food. “Heard a little more about your rumble with C. Am. in DC.”

The asset looks up slowly, fingers pausing on the keyboard of the laptop he purchased in Paris. “C. Am.?”

“Y’know, Cap.”

The asset does not respond.

Wilson sighs. “Captain America? You blew up a freeway trying to off him and then,” he fans his fingers out, dropping the empty taco wrapper to the table as he makes a noise that the asset believes is meant to represent an explosion. “Those air carriers were toast and Cap was mostly dead.”

Once again, the asset does not respond.

“Oh, _c’mon_ , Soldier, get me _in_ on that!”

Everything in the asset stills, his focus narrowing entirely to the mercenary sitting across the table from him. Nothing else registers as he notes Wilson’s most recent wounds and begins running through series after series of injuries that he could inflict that might actually — eventually — stop the other man from regenerating.

“Oh, oh — no, hey,” Wilson says, waving a hand in front of the asset’s face. There are specks of taco-residue on the mercenary’s gloves. “Not to kill him. Hi, I’m not interested in offing _Captain America_.”

Warily, the asset asks, “Then what _are_ you interested in, Wilson?”

“I want his _autograph_!”

The voice that lives in the back of the asset’s head, the one that is his but not, starts laughing. It is strange, to have part of himself laughing while the rest of him stares in growing incredulity at the man across from him. “You want — ”

“His John Hancock, his signature, a sample of his handwriting that’s actually just ‘Captain America’ on a piece of paper,” Wilson says, grinning even as he pulls his mask back down to cover his mouth.

There is another pause during which the voice in the back of the asset’s head attempts to get itself under control. The asset would be worried about this, but the voice that is his and not his is helpful sometimes. “Why?”

“Because he _punched Hitler_ ,” Wilson says, positively wiggling in his seat.

“No, he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did,” the mercenary says, voice completely serious.

“No, Wilson, he really didn’t. That was all USO propaganda.”

The mercenary might be pouting. “How would _you_ know?”

“I — ” The asset does not know how to answer that question. He could be honest, but that does not seem wise and also, the information he has is privileged. “It doesn’t matter.” This is not the answer he should have given if he wanted to dissuade Wilson from further questions. The asset realizes this almost immediately.

Wilson doesn’t reply for a long moment. When he does, he simply says, “Okay.” Then he produces his phone from somewhere and starts tapping away at its screen.

The asset does not believe this will be beneficial to the mission. He attempts to distract the mercenary. “Seriously, though. Aren’t you Canadian?”

The mercenary looks up and the asset can tell that his eyebrows are raised beneath his mask. “Aw, you _remember_ me!” The asset pauses. He does not know how he knew Wilson was Canadian. “Not that _that_ matters,” the other man continues, waving his phone around a bit. “It’s not like we have a Captain _Canada_.”

“You have Captain Britain.”

Wilson snorts. “No, we have _Captain Canuck_ and _Major Mapleleaf_. We have _Alpha Flight_. Fucking _Northstar_.” The mercenary makes a face and then, in an atrocious French accent, continues, “Oh ho ho, I am French- _Canadian_. Obviously I am _superior to you_ …”

The asset blinks slowly at the mercenary.

Suddenly, Wilson grins again. “I know, I know. Deep seated issues. Don’t worry, I’m totally on top of it. What’re we doing in Poland?”

 

* * *

 

> The plan the asset has formulated is relatively simple.
> 
> The asset does not require simplicity, but it is often best to keep operations as uncomplicated as possible.
> 
> Like hiding.
> 
> Like being on the run.
> 
> Like taking down an international criminal organization that has existed, in one form or another, for almost a century.
> 
> The asset believes that playing on Hydra’s complete faith in automated processes will work in his favor. It is, after all, part of the reason he is free. The heads of Hydra believe almost unequivocally in the effectiveness of their conditioning, of their reprogramming techniques. They played both sides of the Cold War, combining techniques pioneered in the Red Room for the KGB with American ingenuity and perseverance. That is, at least, what the asset overheard a handler saying in 1998.
> 
> He thinks it was 1998. He could be wrong. The memory is confusing. It does not matter.
> 
> People see what they expect to see. They do not expect to see a killer and so they do not suspect he is there to kill them. The asset does not feel the need to correct their misconceptions. He is playing to his strengths.
> 
> Hydra believes his strength originated in the chair, in the wipes, in his conditioning, in his programming.
> 
> The asset does not falter.
> 
> Hydra does not falter.
> 
> Hydra does not have _time_ to falter.
> 
> Hydra has so little time to falter, in fact, that it has automated many of its security protocols. This, the heads of Hydra believe, removes the potential for human error. There is a relay system in place. There are certain patterns that repeat, even within the algorithm Hydra utilizes to monitor their security worldwide. To be fair, the asset knows that this is only the first layer of security, meant to alert the heads on other continents when something has happened in one of its far-flung locations.
> 
> The asset does not particularly feel like being _fair_ to Hydra.
> 
> The asset believes Hydra has gotten lazy and he fully intends to take advantage of that complacency.
> 
> The asset knows where the relay box is located in the compound in Lyon. He knows where they are in several European facilities and three in South America. He does not think he can reach the South American installations before _someone_ in Hydra notices that its older facilities have gone completely dark _except_ for the daily relay. There are other forms of communication. Someone will try to make a phone call or expect a reply to a very important email.
> 
> But the plan will allow him to very quietly destroy several compounds that currently house large portions of Hydra’s technical and mechanical weaponry. The bases are strategically valuable, yes, but they are also large. While Hydra still spans the globe, more of its personnel operate within and around the larger metropolises — Hong Kong, Moscow, Berlin, Houston, San Francisco, Vancouver, Mexico City, New Delhi, Tokyo.
> 
> Individual Hydra agents are all well armed.
> 
> Each of the newer facilities has a weapons depot that would put most law enforcement agencies to shame.
> 
> But its tanks and its artillery, the weapons it will use to forcibly take the countries it cannot overthrow through more subtle means… weapons from a different time and a different kind of war. Those are all housed in bases like the one in Lyon. And if there is no one in the compound to answer the call for weapons, should it come, then Hydra will not have access to this particular cache of weapons of mass destruction. Lyon might not fall. It will give the city and its people a chance, at the very least, and offer Hydra an unwelcome surprise.
> 
> The asset knows that his plan will not succeed indefinitely. However, if the asset moves quickly enough, he will be able to significantly undermine Hydra’s ability to respond to resistance in Europe with brute strength before he has to change tactics. And when the time comes to formulate a new plan, he will have collected enough data from the servers in each complex he has dismantled to _truly_ begin the destruction he so desperately wishes to mete out.
> 
> A very small, very quiet part of the asset whispers that, if he manages to accomplish this first goal, then perhaps, just _perhaps_ … he will have something worthwhile which he might able to present Rogers. And _perhaps_ … he and Rogers might be able to take Hydra down together. That part of the asset is so small, though, and so very, very quiet that it is easily ignored. He has more important things upon which to focus right now.
> 
> Wilson played his part to perfection in Lyon and the asset slipped into the facility while Hydra paid attention to the noise at its front gates. While the mercenary took down as many of them as he could, the asset moved silently through the base. He became the ghost they made him to be, and he killed everyone who did not respond to Wilson’s demand for attention. Once the base was cleared of personnel, the asset took the data he required, performed a secondary sweep, and left as silently as he arrived.
> 
> The relay remains intact.
> 
> The heads of Hydra remain none the wiser.
> 
> The asset will move on to the next base.
> 
> He and Wilson will repeat their success.

 

* * *

 

Olsztyn goes as smoothly as Lyon, opening the door to Alesund, Norway; that’s where Wilson and the asset temporarily stall because their day of planning is interrupted. It is interrupted by a very large explosion and the sounds of extensive fighting. The asset finds himself moving without conscious thought.

The asset knows two things:

1) They were observing the Hydra installation.

2) There was an explosion.

Now, the asset is on the roof.

Wilson follows him, so weighted down with weaponry that the asset fairly (if distantly) marvels at how he’s able to walk without constantly clinking.

The asset sets up his sniper rifle and slips into the quiet mindspace necessary for killing someone from this distance. This was not part of the plan, but he needs to know what’s happening. His line of sight is obstructed only by the steeple of a church to the left and a copse of young trees.

Correction, the asset’s line of sight _was_ obstructed only by the steeple of a church to the left and a copse of young trees. Neither of those things impedes his line of sight now. Instead, his line of sight is briefly obstructed by a large, green wall of flesh. The Hulk roars. The Hydra installation quakes. The asset believes popular culture now refers to the Hulk as a ‘rage-monster.’ The asset does not immediately disagree with this assessment.

“Oh my God,” Wilson breathes, pulling a very small pair of binoculars from one of his multitude of pouches and holding them up to his eye patches so he can stare through them. “Oh my _God_ , they’re _here_.”

The asset frowns up at the mercenary. “They are interfering.”

Wilson actually has the audacity to laugh. “They’re doing their job. Which is our job. Only _they’re_ having way more fun than we are.”

“You got to blow up the security building in Olsztyn,” the asset mutters, frowning as he goes back to looking through the scope of his sniper rifle. “And use the RPG launcher in Lyon.” It takes him all of ten seconds to find Rogers with his ridiculous shield. At least it’s no longer painted like a _target_. At least _someone_ has some sense, the asset thinks. Probably, it is the complicated redhead.

He does not remember her name, but he does not doubt that she would have suggested something to fix the Rogers-as-automatic-target problem they likely face on a regular basis. A Hydra agent approaches Rogers from behind. Iron Man blasts the agent with some type of energy beam. The asset’s frown blackens further, morphing into a proper scowl. Wilson takes a step away from him as he pushes himself up and away from his rifle. It takes him almost no time at all to switch out his signature, Soviet ammunition for something more easily purchased on the open market and, therefore, practically anonymous. There will be no rifling, but that cannot be helped.

The asset takes a slow breath and settles with the rifle held steady in his left hand, his flesh and blood hand positioned to pull the trigger. He knows that Wilson is watching him. He does not care.

The asset puts his eye to his scope, finds Rogers, and tracks him through the upper level of the Hydra facility.

The asset loses time.

He slips between one minute and the next without realizing it’s happening. He is patient. He is calm. He takes a breath and listens to the steady beat of his heart in his ears. He counts time using the thud-thud-thud of his pulse and it is easy. It is so, so easy to put himself into this mission mindset. This is familiar. This is comfortable.

Minutes (or possibly hours) later, the asset sees the woman approaching Steve in his blind spot. She’s holding a weapon, a weapon he recognizes. It’s a weapon he hasn’t seen in decades but he knows what it will do if she hits her target. None of Rogers’ teammates are in a position to assist him, so the asset takes aim. Between one heartbeat and the next, a red circle blooms on her forehead and she falls. The weapon falls.

The second agent the asset kills is wearing some type of suit that is both ridiculous and horrifying. He takes out two more agents who would have gotten some sort of shot off at Rogers. There are many others, but Rogers’ teammates handle them and the asset does not question their abilities. He does not know why. He does not think he should trust them, certainly not with Rogers’ safety. It is not trust, he rationalizes. It is not trust. There is empirical evidence available which proves that they can and will protect Captain America.

The asset does not know how long he lays on the rooftop shooting people who might hurt Steve.

The asset believes the archer might suspect another sniper is in play. It can’t be helped.

“We have to leave,” he tells Wilson once the battle at the facility has come to its natural end. He sits up and begins disassembling the sniper rifle.

“ _Now?_ ”

“Yes.”

“But. He’s _right there_. Couldn’t I just _—_ ”

“No.” The asset must reevaluate the situation.

The mercenary scuffs his foot against the roof almost despondently.

“Do what you want, Wilson,” the asset growls. He does not want to lose Wilson, the man is more than capable of providing all the distractions the asset requires when infiltrating Hydra installations, but he will not — he cannot — force someone to follow him when they are not willing.

“Nah, it’s alright,” Wilson says, shrugging listlessly. “But you owe me an autograph. My people say you’ve got an _in_ with him and since he’s one of like two people you’ve ever not successfully assassinated…”

Standing, the asset slings his rifle in its innocuous case onto his shoulder. It looks like a laptop bag. It is, obviously, not a laptop bag. The asset is very pleased with it. “Your information is incorrect.”

“What, you’ve missed more than two targets?” Wilson sounds honestly surprised as he walks toward the door that leads back downstairs. That is strangely gratifying.

“No. He is the only mission that I have failed to successfully complete.”

Wilson doesn’t say anything for a long time. Long enough that the asset feels almost secure in the belief that the mercenary will not push. It is a false sense of security. The asset should know better by now.

“So, wait. He’s literally the _only_ person you’ve been instructed to kill that you haven’t actually killed. And you _actively_ saved him from drowning by dragging his patriotic ass out of the Potomac. And you _just_ killed people to keep them from killing him.” Wilson stops speaking, giving the asset a significant look as they shoulder their respective duffel bags and meet in the hallway before the door downstairs. They have separate exit plans. They will regroup in different safe houses and then decide what their next move will be once they are sure that neither of them have been followed.

The asset does not respond to Wilson’s recitation of the asset’s recent, seemingly erratic behavior. The asset does not think the mercenary is going to let this go easily.

“Uh _huh_ ,” Wilson says, his tone indicating that he is pleased with himself as he exits the building and heads north.

The asset goes east.

 

* * *

 

The mission has been in progress for a half hour when Clint notices something odd. It takes him a minute, he’s a little distracted putting arrows in Hydra agents’ throats before they can throw some kind of electromagnetic, auto-tightening net over Tasha. But then he sees a woman coming up in Cap’s blind spot and he takes aim at her, but he’s too far away, he’s way out of range and the angle’s off, anyway.

Tony’s dealing with anti-aircraft artillery, so he can’t spare the attention, Thor’s on the ground on the other side of the facility tossing lightning around like it’s going out of style, Tasha’s already inside the compound, and the Hulk is… the Hulk has apparently found a nest of Hydra agents attempting to use some kind of passage that exits the base in a church to the north of the facility. So now there’s no more church. Excellent. Cap’s in the middle of everything, his shield bouncing off men and signposts, tanks and walls. It ricochets off some guy’s helmet and comes right back to Steve, who just sends it out again.

And that’s when the woman with the antique-looking gun that fires blue — blue, he knows that blue, he _knows that blue_ — stuff at things and disintegrates them rises and takes aim at Steve. There is a gaping, empty space where the blue beam hit and a wall used to be. A bullet hole forms on her forehead before she can fire another shot and that’s not necessarily odd except — except, Tasha’s the only Avenger with a gun on this mission and she’s not even outside anymore, let alone close enough to hit the Hydra agent. It’s a clean shot. It’s a _beautiful_ shot, and Clint will appreciate it later when he’s not freaking the fuck out because _what the fuck_ , Hydra?

He ducks for cover and says into his comm, “Hydra has weapons based off the Tesseract. Projectile weapons circa Steve’s DOD. I’m gonna take a second to regroup.”

“Damn,” Steve mutters, and Clint can just imagine him snagging his shield out of the air before taking advantage of a momentary lull in fighting to pause and look around.

Clint gives himself a three-count to get his shit together, then takes a breath, nods, and turns around to face the field of battle again. It’s been maybe a minute since the woman went down.

It’s another twenty before it happens again. Sort of. Maybe.

It’s not that Cap’s particularly reckless. It’s not even that Hydra’s trained its non-STRIKE teams to be particularly effective against the Avengers. It’s just that Steve has a tendency to plunge in head-first where he thinks he’s needed. And sometimes where Steve’s needed, the other Avengers can’t get to him in time to keep Hydra agents from clobbering him. It’s not that Steve won’t be able to pick himself up off the ground after getting clobbered. It’s just that watching him struggle through the injuries after the clobbering is kind of painful for everyone involved. Cause Steve might not agree with everything they do all the time — in fact, he vehemently disagrees with a lot of things Tony thinks are great and Clint _knows_ Steve disapproves of how few moral scruples both Clint and Tasha have — but he’s kind of like gum that gets stuck on the bottom of your shoe.

You step in it by accident, right? And then it won’t leave you alone. It just keeps sticking your foot to the floor and you can pull the sole of your shoe away, but it makes an irritating, squish-rip sound every time you do. You can walk, though, so you walk. You go about your day, just sort of doing your thing, and you forget it’s there until you’re taking your shoes off at the end of the night. You notice the weird patch of discolored, hardened goo on the bottom of one of them and you have to pause to remember how it got there. You know you could scrape it off, but it’d take effort and you’re kinda tired — it’s been a long day — and anyway, it’s sort of dried into a nifty shape, so you might as well just let it stay.

Steve Rogers is the discolored, hardened goo that holds the Avengers together, even when they really, _really_ want to fly off in opposite directions and maybe permanently relocate to other planets. Clint means that in the fondest, most exasperated way possible.

So Clint has no idea who’s doing the shooting, but when the behemoth of a Hydra agent comes tromping out of what is apparently an actual hidden passageway, he’s just glad they’re so good. Because an arrow, even one with an explosive or corrosive point, won’t do much against the armor that guy’s sporting. Thor’s gone to help Tony with the anti-aircraft artillery, Tasha’s still inside — he assumes she’s finding whoever’s in charge and killing them, and the Hulk’s fucked off to God only knows where. Which leaves Steve facing the bastard lovechild of Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit and Sharktopus, all by his little lonesome.

Tentacles are whipping every which way, obviously sporting electrical charges if the smoking gashes in the walls around it are any indication. There are teeth, too, which is entirely illogical but this is Hydra and they think recreating the Hulk is a good idea, so he’s just stopped asking why they’re doing what they’re doing. If there weren’t some kind of faceplate with mesh involved, he’d just put an arrow through the Hydra agent’s eye. Clint’s gearing up to drop from his nest and book it over to Cap to try and offer whatever hand-to-hand support he can when the robotic shark suit stops moving forward.

Seconds inch by and then the suit explodes.

“What the fuck,” Clint says, voice flat.

“Internal power source,” Tony answers the not-question, voice tinny through the comm as he takes a timeout from his fight with the anti-aircraft artillery to make a pass over his teammates. “Probably ruptured through corroded metal. Stalled out, exploded. Some of the parts on that thing look like they came out of SHIELD’s Cold War storage units. This, boys and girl, is why you shouldn’t play with grandpa’s toys.”

Clint just shakes his head rather than contradicting Tony’s assessment of the suit’s demise. He keeps his suspicions to himself for the moment, since it won’t do anyone any good to freak out about a stranger with a sniper rifle and some really, really sexy aim lurking in what is apparently an excellent vantage point. He’s a little bit jealous of that vantage point, he’s not ashamed to admit it.

It happens twice more and Clint’s not sure that anybody else actually notices. He makes sure to keep his sighs of envy and admiration silent even as he picks off the few straggling Hydra agents still attempting to escape. He should _probably_ at least pretend to try not to kill them, since they’re _technically_ supposed to take any survivors in for questioning by Interpol, but it looks like Steve left plenty of them alive down below. That’ll have to be good enough.

This compound winds up being almost the same as the one in Debrecen and Clint will admit that he’s a little irritated. It’s early in the game, obviously, but besides more data about medical experimentation that makes Bruce turn on his heel after reading for less than two minutes and walk out of the lab, they don’t get anything of real value. They don’t stop at any candy shops in Norway after stripping the Hydra facility and blowing it to kingdom come, either. Clint doesn’t mind. He caught just enough of the information Bruce saw to sour his stomach.

Tasha sidles up to him on the Quinjet.

Tony and Steve are in the cockpit, probably arguing about giving the Hydra agents over to Interpol and why it’s the right (or wrong) thing to do. Bruce is wrapped up in a blanket, hopefully sleeping off some of the fatigue shifting into and out of the Hulk causes. Thor’s flying himself back to the Tower, probably with a stopover wherever Doctor Foster’s staying. Clint wonders if Thor will ever trust anything on Earth to stay safe. He’s not sure he would, if he were in the god’s position, but he’s not. And Clint’s turning into a cynic, anyway.

Deceptively fragile-looking fingers lace through his and Clint pulls himself out of his thoughts to offer Tasha a tired smile. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she says softly, leaning her temple against his shoulder. “What are you hiding?”

“Hm?” Clint makes the attempt, but it’s weak and he knows it. “I dunno,” he finally says when she doesn’t even bother giving him the look that lets him know she knows he’s lying.

“Okay,” Tasha says, and he can tell that she’s tired. “What are you hiding until you know for sure?”

Letting his head thunk back against the wall behind them, Clint shifts around until he’s got himself wedged into a corner, shoulders braced. He pulls her in without losing his grasp on her hand, closes his eyes, and says, “We had company.”

One corner of Tasha’s mouth twists up as she settles against his side, ear resting just beneath his collarbone. “Obviously not an unfriendly, or you’d have said something earlier.”

“Yeah,” Clint agrees. He sighs. “I _think_ I could make a pretty educated guess about who it was, though.”

“Barnes?”

“The shots our guest was making — Tasha, they were seriously impressive. And it wasn’t random kills. It was — from what I could see, the shooter only stepped in when none of us were around to take out the person he took out. Steve-centric, offense-is-the-best-defense kind of shots. I counted at least three of them, maybe four if the armor thing was him and not a mechanical malfunction like Stark thinks. I don’t know if there were more — there could’ve been, but with all the Hydra agents…” Clint trails off and shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

She doesn’t say anything for several long moments. The quiet stretches between them, lengthening until Clint almost thinks he could doze off. Then Tasha pokes his side with her viciously pointed elbow and finally offers, “He _did_ save Steve in DC.”

“Yeah, after shooting him — what? Four times? And you once,” he says with a frown.

She shrugs. “I don’t think I’ll hold it against him.”

“And Odessa?”

“I won’t hold that against him, either.”

“Do you mind if I do?” Clint asks, half-serious.

“You can do whatever you like,” Tasha says. “But considering his conditioning…”

“Right,” he sighs, cracking an eye open to look down at her. “Well. Tell me what you think of the whole… red star thing.”

She snorts. “Red star thing?”

“Y’know what I mean. Hydra’s been all over. They’re like the sluttiest terrorist organization in the history of ever. You think they pulled him from the Red Room or you think…?”

“I don’t know,” Tasha says, turning to bury her nose in the fabric of the shirt he wore beneath his suit. “It’s possible. He’s been around for so long, maybe he _was_ bought and sold like so many Red Room assets. You’re right, though, Hydra’s been everywhere. Maybe Hydra was always within the Red Room. I just… there’s got to be a reason I have this.” She turns her right hand where it’s clasped in his so he can catch sight of just the smallest part of her new mark. “Sometimes, I think I remember something, or that I _could_ remember something, if I just… had the time or the right trigger. But I _don’t_ have the time and nothing ever surfaces.”

Pressing a kiss to her forehead, Clint says, “We’ll get it figured out. And hey, maybe if he’s remembering enough to protect Steve, he’ll be able to answer some of your questions, too.”

“You saw the footage from the helicarrier,” Tasha says, a frown in her voice. “I’m not sure he’s stable enough to remember the kinds of details I’d need from him.”

Silence falls between them again and Clint’s nearly asleep when an idea strikes him. “Hey, we should have a codename for him. Just in case. Y’know, so Steve doesn’t know we’re talking about him.”

“No,” she says, not even trying to wake up enough to say anything more.

“Aw, Tasha, c’mon. I’ve got a great one.”

“Not codenaming ’im Lemurian Star. ’s where the whole thing started. Ship.”

“Damn.”

She presses a yawn into his shirt and then murmurs, “Find a better one. ’nd maybe.”

 

* * *

 

> See, here’s the thing about Wade. Everyone knows he’s good at killing people. Everyone knows he’s got a big mouth. Everyone knows he’s prone to breaking into bouts of spontaneous and highly inappropriate song when the mood strikes him.
> 
> And everyone underestimates his intelligence because of these things.
> 
> Wade doesn’t mind. It gives him an edge.
> 
> But, as mentioned in his previous interlude, Wade’s not stupid.
> 
> The Winter Soldier’s dropping all these breadcrumbs left, right, and center. Of _course_ Wade’s gonna pick ‘em up, turn ‘em every which way to figure out how they fit together, and then see if he can’t reconstruct himself a baguette. Or maybe a cinnamon twist, those are delicious.
> 
> What Wade’s put together so far is pretty interesting and he’s not sure he actually believes it but he’s gonna roll with it because it’s one _hell_ of a story. Theory. Theoretical story. That’s not important.
> 
> What’s important is that Wade’s gone on three and a half actual missions with the Winter Soldier and he’s beginning to think that Hydra worked that guy over more than anybody suspects. Wade knows what it’s like to get worked over by a nefarious organization that might or might not be officially sanctioned by the government of whatever country you’re in. He totally gets that, he is definitely on the same page as the Winter Soldier there.
> 
> He’s just _not_ as sure about the Winter Soldier’s motivations as he could be. Or maybe _should_ be. He totally let the Winter Soldier set up his amazingly awesome (if Wade does say so himself) sniper rifle and then aim in Captain America’s general direction — without any guarantee that the Soldier _wasn’t_ going to try and off the good Captain. And Wade’s not sure Cap would actually die if he took a bullet to the head, but he’s also not sure why he let that happen — except that he sort of has this feeling and, well. Wade trusts his gut a lot more than he probably should, too.
> 
> See, here’s the thing about Wade — Wade’s not stupid.
> 
> Wade’s got this idea in his head that there’s some kind of epic going on right under his nose. It’s like a fairytale or some shit, and while _Wade_ is not an actual, trufax Disney Prince and/or Princess, he believes with 100% of his morally questionable little heart that Captain America totally is.
> 
> So, the question winds up being this — if Captain America is an actual, trufax Disney Prince and/or Princess… what does that make the Winter Soldier?

 

* * *

 

The asset breaks protocol and goes straight to the secondary safe house where he and Wilson are to meet. The mercenary calls four hours later to confirm that the coast is clear and then arrives at the secondary safe house six hours after that.

It is dark outside.

The asset is in the bathroom.

The asset is in the shower. The water is running cold.

The asset did not manage to undress before he curled up in the corner of the shower. It is not a large cubicle. He should apologize to Wilson for using all of the hot water. He does not.

The asset does not know how long he stays in the shower after the mercenary’s arrival before Wilson begins banging on the bathroom door.

“Yo!” The mercenary’s voice is as caustic as always, gasoline on gravel and broken glass. “Soldier!”

The asset does not respond.

His arms are wrapped around his knees, his nose is pressed to the crease between them, his hair is plastered to his forehead. Water drips from his unkempt hair and soaks into his already sodden shirt. He shivers.

“Okay, I’m usually pretty respectful of your twitchy moods and shit, but uh… dude, what are you doing in there?”

The asset does not respond.

“If you’re dead, I am _never_ going to get my Captain America autograph — ”

The asset slams his metal arm into the tiled wall beside him. The tiles shatter. The noise echoes through the bathroom.

“Awesome, you’re not dead!” Wilson’s voice seems unnecessarily chipper as he makes this declaration. “I’m still coming in. Don’t kill me.”

The asset makes no promises.

The door splinters at the handle, the lock breaking out of the wooden frame. They are in Wemmel, just outside Brussels. The house is quaint.

Wilson sticks his arm through the doorway and waves it around. The asset sees it in the mirror over the counter and assumes it is the mercenary’s token attempt at keeping himself from being shot pointblank.

Wilson does not need to worry.

The asset left all of his weapons in the hallway outside the bathroom in the duffel bag. He does not care about maintaining a secure perimeter. He does not care about security consciousness. He does not care —

He cannot care —

He cannot —

Wilson walks into the bathroom. He walks cautiously, but he does not hesitate as he passes the threshold. One moment the asset is curled up in the shower, cold water hitting his metal shoulder through cloth and misting over his bent head, alone but for the mercenary’s hand and the splinters of the door frame. The next Wilson is in the bathroom pulling his mask off so he can look at the asset properly, without whatever fabric allows him to see through the mask obstructing his view.

The asset wraps his metal arm around his knees again. He looks up at Wilson without actively moving any muscles not attached to his eyes. He’s shivering. He thinks that doesn’t count. His nose is still pressed into the crease between his raised knees. He is cold.

The asset does not know what Wilson will do.

The asset does not know why Wilson is here.

The asset does not know what Wilson wants.

The asset does not know anything _about_ Wilson.

The asset should have planned better. These missions, his plan —

The asset did not investigate. He did not research. He did not —

The asset did not —

The asset was _unprepared_.

The asset did not expect to see Rogers. He did not expect to kill Hydra agents for Rogers. Not again.

 _Again_.

The voice in the back of his mind has been creeping to the fore. It whispers to him. The asset thinks the voice is still trying to be helpful. He does not think that the voice that is his and is not his will be able to be helpful right now. The asset did not —

The asset was not —

Wilson is standing at the shower door. He’s looking down at the asset, he’s not wearing his mask, and the asset thinks that means something. He thinks that is significant. Wilson sits on his heels and his face is scarred, it’s covered in masses and pockmarks, but his eyes are clear and the asset thought —

The asset thought his eyes would be strange, that they would somehow give away Wilson’s mental instability. Wilson is crazy. Wilson is insane. Wilson is —

The asset thought —

“Alright, Sarge,” Wilson says, his voice low like he’s trying not to startle a wild animal. When he speaks like that, the asset almost thinks that his voice isn’t so much gasoline on broken glass and gravel as maybe something else. Maybe something not quite deadly. Maybe something —

“What?” The asset’s eyes widen. He does not recognize his own voice. His lips are pressed so tightly to his legs, hiding behind his knees, that the fabric of his pants seems unusually rough.

Wilson’s eyes are blue. His lips are scarred. His nose is crooked. There is something off about the cartilage. There is something off about the words coming out of the mercenary’s scarred mouth. Wilson’s teeth are very white. They are very straight. His eyes are very blue, but not blue like Rogers’. They are pale — so pale. They are blue like ice is blue, almost clear-white in the fluorescent bathroom light.

“Let’s get you up.”

“You called me — called me — ”

Wilson’s lips twist. “Sarge.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say,” Wilson says, telegraphing every move he’s making as he reaches out and hooks his hands under the asset’s arms. “That Rogers wasn’t exactly _quiet_ about who you were after that fight on the bridge in DC, the one we’re definitely still not talking about.”

“He — what?”

“Mentioned you a few times. One of the Hydra guys who didn’t die immediately fell through a couple different cracks — but don’t worry, he’s dead now.”

The asset has to stand, he has to extend his legs. He is cold and shivering but he does not want Wilson to actually have to lift him completely out of the shower stall or carry him.

The asset does not speak again as Wilson hauls him down the hall. He hooks the asset’s duffel bag with his foot and drags it with them as he pulls the asset into one of the bedrooms.

The asset is confused. He is so confused.

It’s not until Wilson is stripping the asset’s sopping shirt off over his head that the asset manages to ask, “How — how long?”

The mercenary arches a brow. The asset thinks his hair was probably a dirty blond, once. Before the cancer made him this way and he lost all the hair on his head except for his eyebrows. “How long what?”

“How long have you known?”

“That you were Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes?” Wilson smirks. “Made a few phone calls on the way to my first safe house. Just got confirmation an hour or two ago. But your thing in Alesund sort of gave you away. Laser focus, Cap the only beneficiary.” He stops talking long enough to turn around and dig through the asset’s duffel bag for a shirt that is not wet. As he straightens, he seems to freeze, mouth open as though he intended to say something more and then forgot what it was.

The asset is still shivering. He wraps his flesh and blood arm around his middle and asks, “What?”

Lifting his chin, Wilson indicates the asset’s left shoulder and asks, “You always had that?”

The asset is still confused. He does not look at his vibranium shoulder. He knows what it looks like. “Hydra — they. Put it on. After I fell.”

“No,” Wilson says, eyes flicking from the shoulder to the asset’s face and back again. “The mark.”

The asset shifts to look at his shoulder so quickly he very nearly unbalances himself.

And it’s true.

It’s true. There’s a mark there.

The asset has a mark. It is small but it is colorful and —

No. There is another mark. There is a soulmark on what’s left of his shoulder, on his collarbone.

The asset feels his knees go weak. Wilson catches his elbow and propels him to the bed.

The asset cannot stop looking at the mark.

The little spool, the tiny brown spool. It’s taken up residence beneath his collarbone. The thread is red again. It was white before. But now it’s red. It’s red and there’s a needle threaded through its end. The stitching —

The stitching —

The asset lifts his metal arm and cranes his neck, first one way and then the other to try to see the whole thing.

The stitches are neat, so neat and even. They form a circle, resting an inch away from the vibranium plates covering the joint that anchors the arm to his skeleton. It’s a quarter of an inch wide and the stitches are so neat where they overlay the thick band of scar tissue. If he wasn’t looking for it, he would think it was solid red, but it’s stitches, it’s embroidery — it’s like it was before only not, only different.

This is Steve. This is Steve on his skin, _in_ his skin again and the asset can’t —

The asset can’t —

“Breathe, Sarge,” Wilson says, and the words snap the asset out of his wonder. He freezes, eyes flicking up to look at the other man. The asset is —

He is —

He is.

Wilson snorts a laugh at him and the asset could kill him, he _could_. But he won’t.

His shivering begins to taper off.

The asset reaches for the shirt in Wilson’s hands. He pulls it on despite his still-damp skin and then shakes his head to get his hair off the back of his neck. “We’ve got — planning. Wilson, we’ve got planning to do.”

The mercenary grins and the asset knows — he _knows_ — that most people would think it a grotesque expression. There is something about the combination of scars and tumors and ragged, regrown flesh that would make most people think it terrible. But the asset is not most people. The asset has seen things far worse than a scarred smile. He has seen things far worse than such honesty — and it _is_ honest. The asset thinks Wilson’s scarred and cancer-ridden grin might just be the most honest thing he’s seen on anyone’s face since the abject horror on Rogers’ as the asset fell.

 

* * *

 

Distilling the massive SHIELD server dump into something useful is using up a lot more of Jarvis’ processing power than Tony initially anticipated, but they’ve managed to get several more potential facility locations out of it. While Steve and Bruce seem genuinely shocked at some of the things SHIELD itself, not Hydra-within-SHIELD, have done over the last three decades, Clint figures it’s just about par for the course. That doesn’t necessarily mean that showing up to the installation in Lyon to find it full of dead and decomposing bodies is a thing any of them expect or particularly enjoy.

“Jesus,” Tony mutters, voice slightly mechanical through the suit’s face mask.

Bruce just turns and leaves the compound, a whole world of _nope-nope-nope_ on his face. Clint imagines he’s probably fighting a few differing emotions — gladness that he doesn’t have to shift into the Hulk, disgust and horror at the scene they walked into, maybe a bit of vicious satisfaction, considering how vocal he’s been about the awful, unethical things the Hydra scientists are _probably_ doing with the scepter.

Steve glances over at Tony and says, “You probably wanna stay in the suit. It… smells pretty awful out here.”

Tasha shrugs and moves through the compound. Clint stays on her six.

There’s not a living person in the facility but there is virtually no evidence of a fight or struggle once they make it past the security building at the main entrance.

Tasha gets an odd look on her face, just around the eyes — like she’s seeing something familiar and she can’t place it. Clint lets her be as she pauses. He just stops behind her and stays alert until she begins walking again. Only now she’s walking with purpose.

Clint lets the others know Tasha might or might not be onto something and that they’re deviating from the initial plan. Not that there was much of a plan to begin with. Get in, break some heads, steal some data, get out, blow it up. Pretty much a textbook smash and grab, so far as Clint’s concerned. Still, they’re deviating.

“We’ll let you guys know if we find anything. Switching to channel four. Give us a pip if you need us and we’ll swap back to three,” Clint says, then reaches up to his ear and flicks the little button that changes the channel. Their comms don’t use old school radio channels the way walkie-talkies do. None of that for Mister Tony Stark. Clint’s not entirely sure _what_ wavelengths Stark has them on, but they’re efficient and nobody’s been able to crack their frequencies, so he’ll take it.

Tasha’s got one hand extended, almost but not quite touching the wall to their right as they approach a door. She sticks her head inside and then continues past it, a pattern of behavior which continues as she weaves her way through the base.

Clint has no idea what they’re looking for and his curiosity finally gets the better of him after almost an hour. “What’re we up against here, Tasha?”

“I think…” She pauses at an intersection and then takes a left, checking the first door they come to. She turns around and looks at him, curiously detached, before walking back the way they came and taking the other corridor.

“You think?” He asks, a little worried that he has to prompt her. She’s generally on top of explanations, even in the middle of a pitched battle. A jaunt through empty, echoing hallways should be a piece of cake for her.

“I think I recognize this.”

“This what?”

“This kill pattern.” Clint doesn’t respond, just raises his eyebrows even though she’s not looking at him. He doesn’t have to prompt her again. Some of the confusion leaves her voice as she gets to the end of the corridor. They’re at the far side of the base, opposite their original entrance point. “Here,” she says. “He came in here.”

There’s a very, very old window here, more a grate than anything else, flanked on both sides by the high walls of the facility’s upper floors. It’s been pried open and carefully replaced. Tasha’s voice is very soft, almost like she’s repeating something she heard a long time ago as she continues, “No broken glass, no evidence other than the frame obviously having been tampered with. And this far in, who’s going to look for something like that?”

Who, indeed? Clint’s not sure what trail she’s following, but he turns around and watches her retrace whatever invisible markers she’s found.

“The alarms should have sounded,” Tasha continues. Pointing upward, she indicates a small abnormality in one of the ceiling tiles and says, “Or the cameras. The entire complex is under heavy surveillance. So obviously something interfered with the functionality of their entire system.”

When she pulls her handguns, Clint admits to a pretty fierce jolt of concern, but she doesn’t start shooting anything. She just sweeps the base. She walks to every door on the corridor they’re currently in and gives him a basic rundown of how the scene must have played out.

“He had silencers on both guns. Otherwise people would have been alerted by the sound alone, would have hit the manual alarms. Quick and tidy,” Tasha says. “But _why_? If — but no.” She stops walking when they reach the center of the facility, what must have been their central command. There are dead bodies here, too, but again, almost nothing in the room itself has been disturbed. “What is he preserving?”

Walking toward the row of computers along one wall, she sits down in a chair not currently occupied by a corpse or covered in blood spatter and begins typing. Ten minutes later, her hands freeze on the keys and she hisses through her teeth. “ _Oh_.” Then Tasha blinks, her entire expression blanks, and her body goes completely still. When she speaks again, her voice is small, almost childlike. “Vanya?”

Clint’s standing near the door, the smell inside the room had started to get to him, but his attention zeroes in on her again at the quiet exclamation. “Oh? What ‘oh?’ Vanya who?” He asks carefully, intensely conscious of the shift in her demeanor.

She doesn’t respond immediately and Clint’s really worried something’s gotten to her, something’s triggered latent programming they hadn’t even suspected existed. But then she shakes herself a little, the lost expression on her face melting away. “We should leave. Get the others — I’ll explain once we’re back on the jet.” Tasha pulls a flash drive from a pouch on her belt and inserts it into a port. “Go find them, I’ll meet you there. Don’t set any explosives.”

So that’s what he does. Despite his misgivings, small though they are, Clint switches back to channel three and tells the others that they need to rendezvous at the Quinjet, then follows them all out of the compound. It’s a little bit like herding cats. Everyone wants to know what the hell is going on, since he won’t let them set charges to blast the place to smithereens.

By the time they reach the jet, Steve’s frowning intently at the side of Clint’s head, Tony’s doing a pretty good impersonation of Steve’s intent frown, Bruce is sitting quietly off to the side, and Thor is grumping about how the scepter wasn’t in this base, either.

Tasha steps onto the Quinjet and Clint’s honestly just glad somebody else is getting the brunt of Captain America’s ‘I’m disappointed in you, explain yourself’ face.

“The Winter Soldier,” she begins, and then winces at the expression that comes over Steve’s face. “Barnes. _Barnes_ was here. That’s his handiwork inside. But that’s not why we had to leave.” Tasha frowns, but manages to preempt any questions by continuing. “He was at Alesund, too. At least, I think he was. And we… got in his way. I’m not sure what he’s doing, but the kill pattern here is… it’s identical to one of the stealth operations I was taught in the Red Room, meant to preserve the outside appearance of normality while removing a target or potential threat.”

“So, what? You’re saying — he’s working for the Red Room now?” Steve’s got more to say on that, Clint has no doubt, but he doesn’t get the chance.

“Wait, _Vanya,_ ” Clint says as her tone in the command center finally clicks into place with what she’s saying. “Diminutive of Ivan. Russian for John — why wouldn’t they have called him Yakov for James?”

“He might not have remembered his name after the fall,” Tasha says, shaking her head. “And it would have been too obvious, if someone somehow managed to ask the right questions.”

“Who’s — you’re saying _Bucky_ is Vanya and he’s doing… this?” Steve asks, voice strained as he gestures out the back of the jet toward the tomb the Hydra compound has become.

“Yes,” Tasha says, nodding.

“Who is he to you, Tasha?” Clint asks, eyes never leaving her. He can guess, but he thinks it would help everyone else to have it spelled out.

“He…” It’s literally one of the only times he’s ever seen her falter — like she doesn’t have the words in English. “He taught me,” she says, looking from Clint to Steve and back again. “Everything. He taught me _everything_ , but I didn’t — I can’t _remember_. They took him away and I… I don’t remember _why_.”

“No wonder your garrote trick didn’t work in DC,” Clint says lightly even as he shifts over to stand slightly behind her.

Steve keeps opening his mouth as though he intends to say something, only to close it when he obviously changes his mind. Bruce just rubs his eyes. Tony’s still in the suit, so Clint can’t get a read on him. Thor’s got this pained expression on his face and Clint doesn’t know what it means but he knows he’s about to find out when the Asgardian opens his mouth.

“It grieves me, Natasha, that your honored mentor was taken from you in this manner. It is not an easy thing to lose one who so greatly impacted the course of your life. Perhaps, now that he has thrown off their influence and has begun to remember himself, the two of you will reunite and once again find common ground.” And Clint’s not sure what he was expecting, but it probably wasn’t that. He knows his eyebrows have risen and he looks impressed — he can’t help it.

“Thank you,” she says, stepping back so Clint’s arm is touching her shoulder blade.

“Okay,” Steve says, his tone a little calmer now than it was a few minutes ago. “So — what does this mean?”

“He’s got a plan,” Tasha answers without preamble. “A plan I _think_ we might have ruined. I can’t be sure, but from what I could get off the servers without disturbing anything, it looks like he took out all the active personnel on the base but left all of their electronics, all their passive operations, so that he didn’t risk disrupting some type of… not a forwarding system. It’s automated — a security precaution, maybe. As long as that’s intact and no one physically visits the facility, they have no way of knowing for sure that it’s been compromised.”

“Where does that leave us?” Bruce asks.

“Exactly where we were before,” Tasha shrugs. “We’ve still got a mission of our own and I can’t help but think that what we’ve been doing has the potential to assist him. Who’s going to pay attention to a quiet base in Lyon when we’re ransacking and blowing up their base in Norway? The _problem_ is that we don’t know what he’s looking for. So we don’t know which bases to avoid and which to hit. We wouldn’t want to pick our own targets just from the ones he’s _not_ hitting, anyway, since the scepter could be in any of them.”

“And the faster we take it away from Hydra, the better,” Bruce half-murmurs.

“Right,” Tony says, finally disengaging the suit so he can step out of it. He nudges Bruce’s shoulder as the suit folds down into a suitcase and he walks toward the front of the jet. “We’ll just keep on keepin’ on, then. And if we run into Mister Roboto on the next mission, maybe he’ll stick around long enough for us to have a chat.”


End file.
